


Divine

by sciencefictioness



Category: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Amputation, Angst with a 'happy' ending, Blood and Gore, Breeding, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Childbirth, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Electrocution, Emotional Manipulation, Forced Feminization, Forced Orgasm, Forced Pregnancy, Imprisonment, Knotting, Lactation Kink, M/M, Male Lactation, Manipulative Relationship, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Medical Experimentation, Mpreg, Pining, Scars, Sibling Incest, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicidal Thoughts, Threesome - M/M/M, Torture, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Watersports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:40:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25788970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: When Genichiro saw Wolf bleeding in the silvergrass field and refusing to die, he could not look away.  It was like looking in a mirror.Like looking at his brother.Wolf holding on, refusing to let go.  They needed the dragon’s heritage, it was true, but that wasn’t what caught Genichiro like a spider in a web.  It was Wolf, even then.He was so much like Kenjiro.
Relationships: Genichiro Ashina/Kenjiro Ashina, Genichiro Ashina/Sekiro | Wolf, Genichiro Ashina/Sekiro | Wolf/Kenjiro Ashina, Kenjiro Ashina/Sekiro | Wolf
Comments: 14
Kudos: 124





	1. Dominion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kirity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirity/gifts).



> This was a commission for Kiri, who I love and cherish with all my heart. I put it down in words, but so many of the ideas and concepts presented here are hers. Thank you for listening to me yell, and I hope you are prepared to listen to a lot more, because I am not done with these boys.
> 
> I'll post this in chapters as I get it edited. Most of Sekiro fandom probably knows who 'Kenjiro' is, but in case you don't, he is something that evolved from the concept art of Genichiro and fandom sort of decided as a whole that it is Genichiro's twin :D Anyway! Mind the tags and enjoy!

  
  


WOLF.

_ Finally. _

It is not a thought as much as an emotion, and it pours over Wolf like the water of a stream on a hot day. There isn’t any pain at first. 

At first there is only awareness; of the agony that will come. 

Of everything that will follow it. There is the unmistakable sharpness of a blade cutting through him, followed by the soft sound of his arm hitting the ground. Wolf has never lost a piece of himself with such finality. He is made up of other people, shaped into their wills. Wolf is Owl’s fist, and Lady Butterfly’s knife.

If there was anything in him that wasn’t planted there by Owl’s hands or carved by Butterfly’s kunai, Wolf has already lost it without knowing it existed at all. This is stark, and immediate. Wolf is whole, and then he is not. There is an inevitability to it that Wolf wants to sink into.

He has come so far, and bled so much, and now it is over. Wolf drops to his knees, what is left of his arm clutched against his chest.

_ I am sorry. _

Wolf feels it like sand slipping through his fingers. He is sorry. He is weak.

He has failed again. It is all he knows.

The earth catches him. Holds him. Wolf’s blood soaks into the ground.  _ Take it,  _ he thinks, letting his eyes drift shut.  _ Take it all. _

Wolf can feel Genichiro crouching down beside him, pressing rough fingers into the ruin of his arm.

_ Is that all a shinobi has to offer,  _ Genichiro asks. Then he hums. Lifts Wolf’s chin. Breathes in deep.

_ No. I think you have something more. _

Dread pools thick in Wolf’s stomach where he thought only emptiness remained. 

It blooms into horror as Genichiro picks him up and throws him over his shoulder. There is still blood pouring from his wound, but darkness doesn’t come for him. Death is a slow and creeping thing on the edges of his vision, and it refuses to swell forward and claim him.

He closes his eyes and reaches for it but Wolf is vividly, mercilessly alive.

-

Genichiro carries him through the reservoir and into the dungeon beneath the castle. Wolf watches the ground rock wildly around him, clutching weakly at Genichiro’s clothes. His scent is overwhelming— Wolf’s face is shoved against Genichiro’s back. He hasn’t been this close to an alpha since he last saw his father.

Not for longer than it took to put a sword in them, at least.

They leave a trail of blood in their wake, dripping from Wolf’s severed bicep to streak the snow behind them. He drifts out of himself, and everything is far away.

Then Genichiro throws him to the ground, and he comes back again. The pain is something separate from the rest of him.

Wolf wonders how long that will be true.

There are low voices that Wolf can’t make out. Deferential, like everyone who speaks to Genichiro. When he speaks back it is with something like determination.

“See if the Dragon’s Heritage is something we can take from him whether his lord likes it or not.”

Then Genichiro is gone, and Wolf doesn’t know whether he should be relieved or afraid. 

The man in the dungeon has several assistants lurking in the shadows. It is hard to make out how many with his vision blurring, everything coming in and out of focus. They put manacles on Wolf’s remaining wrist and both of his ankles. He fights, but it is listless; there isn’t enough blood in him for anything more. There are medical supplies scattered around the room, walls cut into the stone under the castle, but this man doesn’t look like a doctor to Wolf.

Not with the blood on his hands. Not with the light in his eyes. 

He cuts off Wolf’s clothes with a disinterest that makes Wolf run cold all over. Tosses away his weapons without giving them a second look, pouches spilling sugars onto the floor. Everything Wolf owns is kicked to the side and forgotten. He has never been anything more than a strong hand, quiet steps, and a sharp blade.

Now, he is even less.

It is hard to stay awake with blackness clawing at the edges of his awareness. There are ropes around his chest, around his hips. The man puts a hand on Wolf’s knee and tugs his thighs apart. 

That place in Wolf’s stomach that is full of dread boils.

_ Oh,  _ he says, then pulls harder, fighting through Wolf’s resistance until his knees are both splayed wide. He lays there exposed, naked and tied down with every inch of him laid bare.  _ What a surprise. _

It is easy for Wolf to forget what he is most of the time. 

Easy to forget, so far from his father.

Easy, or just automatic now. Living in the place where the omega in him should be, there is wariness instead.

Wolf has been drinking the shinobi tea so long he cannot remember what it was like before— to be a creature of instinct. To yearn for things he did not truly want, ruled by the animal that lived inside him. 

He bares his teeth but there is nowhere for him to go. Ashina has taken his arm, and his lord, and his weapons. Wolf has nothing left to give.

Then the man above him pulls out a knife, and takes more.

-

Death comes for Wolf.

Death gives him back again. 

Wolf stutters in and out of consciousness, a fever tearing him apart. He sweats, and retches, mumbling incoherently. His father is there with black eyes,  _ look at what’s become of you. _

_ You’re no son of mine. _

His father is gone again. Lady Butterfly is there in his place, but when she opens her mouth it is full of cicadas. They trill forlornly as they pour out, and the air is so thick with them he cannot see through it. He sleeps.

He wakes. Sometimes he is unbound and he tries to escape, but Wolf is in no shape to run. No shape to fight.

Wolf is in no shape to do anything but bleed. The dungeon is lit in flickering candlelight. Sometimes Genichiro watches from the edges of the room, staring in the dark. 

“Is there a way to make it mine?”

Wolf chokes on his blood and seizes. The man with the knife is Doujun, and he is relentless with his blade like Wolf has only ever dreamed of being.

“Not the way you’re thinking, my lord.”

Doujun pulls Wolf’s legs apart again, exposing his cunt like he is showing off an animal’s teeth to a prospective buyer. Wolf’s thighs tremble as he tries to draw them closed, but it is futile; he is exhausted, and starved, and pathetic.

All he can do is glare with his lip curled. 

Flush, and turn away.

“There is no way to take the Dragon’s Heritage by force, but  _ he _ could be yours, if you desired. Otherwise, without Lord Kuro’s cooperation, he is not much use to you. I doubt he’d be swayed to fight by your side. I haven’t seen a male omega in decades, but they’re rumored to be exceptionally fertile. If nothing else, he’ll breed well.”

Wolf bares his teeth. Genichiro sneers.

“Let me know when his heat hits in earnest.”

Genichiro moves closer, grabbing Wolf by the chin and staring.

“I’ve no interest in taking an animal to mate, but Kenjiro has always liked his pets to have a wild streak. None of my grandfather’s retainers will let him anywhere near their daughters, and the brothels refuse to serve him. Perhaps a more durable outlet will serve him well.” Genichiro pauses, and tilts his head. “Perhaps seeing his precious shinobi in such a state will convince Lord Kuro to see reason.”

Genichiro drops his hand away and leaves.

He doesn’t come back for a long time.

-

First, there is healing. Wolf comes back, but he does not come back whole.

Doujun pours water from Wolf’s gourd down his throat. He gives him bits of food here and there, though it is never enough to sate his hunger. Wolf tries to escape again, killing two of Doujun’s assisstants with a chunk of loose stone before being subdued. He ends up in a cell with his arm chained to the wall, naked and shivering through the cold. They toss his food in carelessly after that, and he eats the spilled rice off the ground with his fingers. 

Wolf doesn’t know if he can starve to death. If he thought it might work, he would try; nothingness would be better than this.

A life in chains under someone’s knife.

A life on his back with his legs spread, belly swollen with some Ashina child. The soldiers speak of Kenjiro like he is a monster. Fondly, like he is  _ their  _ monster, but still one they are reluctant to cross. A vicious guard dog that will protect Ashina at any cost, but might snap at his owners from time to time. Wolf wills his body to let go, but it holds on with the same tenacity as always.

After Wolf heals, there are the shakes. Wolf has been drinking the shinobi tea for as long as he can remember, from the day Owl stripped his clothes off the first time and threw a bucket of water over him, glancing between his legs with something darker than surprise.

_ Well look at that,  _ he’d said, and Wolf had looked away instead.

Every day since, Wolf has choked down tea full of bitter herbs. Mushrooms, and roots, and grasses. There is a different brew for the summer than the winter— different plants to use as the seasons change. Wolf can find them all blind in the dark, now. It is enough to suppress his cycle and mute his scent.  _ A shinobi in heat is no shinobi. _

Wolf would have done anything that Owl asked by then; swallowing a cup full of tea to keep himself from becoming some needy, mewling thing begging for an alpha’s knot was nothing at all.

It tastes foul, and Wolf had retched the first time he drank it. The second. The third. He got used to it in time, as Owl had promised he would.

Now he longs for it as withdrawal coils around him like a snake and grips him tight. He’d forgotten to drink it a few times over the years and learned his lesson well. Wolf shivers and sweats, though his fever has long since passed. He cannot stomach the meager food he’s given. Even the water from his gourd makes him queasy; he takes little mouthfuls and wills himself not to be sick. His skin crawls. The candlelight outside his cell hurts his eyes.

He curls up in the corner and tugs at his hair and wishes he did not exist at all. The hallucinations begin again— Kuro comes to him, but the closer he gets, the more he falls apart. His arm is gone, the way Wolf’s is gone. His jaw sits askew on his face.

_ No shinobi of mine,  _ he says, gore spilling down his chin.

No shinobi at all.

When he wakes again the shakes are gone, and there are no ghosts in his cell. There is something worse.

There is  _ heat.  _

It isn’t like any fever he’s experienced; it is flowing through him like fire in his blood. Wolf is flushed, overheated even without any clothes. There is a scent he’s never breathed in before, pouring off him to thicken the air. Like sakura but sweeter. 

Wolf can feel his heart beating between his thighs, a pulse of need that has him aching. He’s never felt anything like it; this want has teeth, and they are sunk into Wolf and eating him alive. It is difficult to resist the urge to touch himself. Wolf is hungry.

Wolf is  _ wet.  _

Doujun comes that day, breathing in deep with a smile on his face. 

_ Ah, finally. Lord Genichiro will be pleased. _

Then he leaves again.

It is the last person Wolf sees for days.

-

When Genichiro comes for him, Wolf is an animal. He lays on the ground, as far from the wall as his chains will reach, filthy fingers shoved into his cunt. Wolf can get off, but it is feeble and unsatisfying; every climax makes the pain in him swell sharper. Without an alpha everything is hollow. His thighs are drenched with slick, his glands swollen with the need to be scent marked. There isn’t a person in him, anymore. Not a son. Not a student. 

Not a shinobi.

Wolf is an omega, and he is so empty it hurts. There is agony between his thighs, swelling low in his abdomen; the need to be filled, and fucked, and bred.

Genichiro steps up to the bars of his cell, and Wolf throws his legs open and whines. There is a look on his face that Wolf can’t decipher; he breathes in deep and it shifts into something wounded.

“Gods, you smell like  _ her.”  _ The expression is gone like a flash of lightning, and there is nothing but cold calculation left behind. “Get him cleaned up. I’ll take him tonight.”

Genichiro leaves, and Wolf whimpers; Genichiro smells like alpha. Like everything he needs. Genichiro can ease the need in Wolf and leave something better behind. He tries to find the words to beg but there is only keening. 

Doujun’s assistants come and throw buckets of water over Wolf. They are blessedly cold, and Wolf is so thirsty, but he cannot dwell on it for long. Doujin assistants are putting their hands on him now, scrubbing him down with silk pouches of rice bran. They are not alphas, but it is still warm skin and physical contact and Wolf cannot help but press into it. He shoves his face into one of their throats only to be jerked back by a fist in his hair. 

They hold him in place and wash the dirt and grime away, Wolf struggling to arch into their touch. These are the people who had helped cut him open, watched the way he healed. The people who had cracked his ribs apart to see his heart beating, then shoved them back into place and marveled as his skin stitched itself up again. 

Wolf is less than an animal to them.

Wolf would beg them to fuck him if only his mouth would obey. He knows now why Owl was so careful to keep this from him.

Wolf would give anything to make it stop.

They dress him in the gauzy white robes of a consort when they are finished. They gag him with a strip of dark silk and leave the manacles on his wrist, but don’t bother putting him in chains.

They bring Genichiro instead, and the scent of alpha is like a drug. Wolf surges to his feet and rushes towards him; Genichiro reaches for a weapon he isn’t carrying.

Then he breathes in, and reaches for Wolf instead. Wolf slams into him, climbing Genichiro as best he can with one arm, shoving his face into Genichiro’s throat. For a moment, Genichiro just holds him there, inhaling his scent; slick, and sweat, and sakura. Wolf makes a noise, rocking his hips against Genichiro, and the moment snaps.

Genichiro tries to pry Wolf off of him, but he doesn’t go willingly. Finally what he aches for is right there in front of him, an alpha to ease the pain. In his desperation Wolf tries to grab at Genichiro with an arm he doesn’t have and ends up on the stone floor, nuzzling into Genichiro’s thigh and digging through his silk robes to press his fingers into himself again. 

Genichiro grabs his wrist and snatches it away, twisting it behind his back. Wolf whines, sliding his knees wider on the floor, but Genichiro doesn’t let go. He keeps Wolf’s wrist pinned there as he jerks him to his feet and throws him over his shoulder. It’s just like when he first brought Wolf to the dungeon. He wonders where they’re going now. Somewhere better.

Somewhere worse.

Wolf doesn’t care, as long as there is an alpha there to fill up the gaping emptiness inside him.

It is dark outside when they emerge onto the castle grounds, stars visible through snatches of clouds. Genichiro carries him through twisting pathways and into the castle proper, up the stairs past a dozen guards making their rounds. The further into the twisting hallways they get, the quieter it is; there is only the sound of Genichiro’s footsteps and Wolf’s muffled whimpers.

Finally Genichiro stops outside one of the doors, adjusting his grip on Wolf to still his writhing. 

“Kenjiro, open up. I brought you something sweet.”

There’s a noise inside, like someone sucking air through their teeth, decidedly disinterested.

“Not hungry,” comes the reply, in a voice almost identical to Genichiro’s own. 

Genichiro slides the door open himself with his foot.

“You’ll want this, I think,” he says, crossing the room and tossing Wolf carelessly down onto the floor. He lands with a thud but the pain barely registers.

Genichiro puts his foot on Wolf’s throat to hold him down. Wolf chokes, clawing his robes open with his hand and blinking frantic, tear filled eyes at Kenjiro, who is leaning against the wall near his futon with a cup of sake in hand.

Wolf has only seen Kenjiro a few times over the years, and always at a distance. There is a quiet sort of violence in him, different from the violence in Genichiro. Different from the violence in Wolf. There is a volatility to it that has everyone around him moving carefully, speaking carefully. Averting their eyes lest that violence spill over onto them. 

He looks like Genichiro, and yet he does not. They are identical except for the scarring on the left side of Kenjiro’s face; it is common knowledge among the Ashina that he tried too hastily to wield lightning and ended up bearing the marks of his failure. His hair is longer than Genichiro’s, hanging loose around his face. Part of his left eye is cloudy.

Wolf can only tell because they’re fixed on him so intently. Kenjiro breathes in deep, lip curling back from his teeth as he smiles.

“Oh, brother. You spoil me.”

There is a cruel anticipation that Wolf only catalogues later; when everything is over, and he is broken.

Now, there is only want. 

Now, there is only pain.

Now Wolf throws his thighs wide, slick pulsing out of him as he makes an animal noise through his gag. He presses his fingers into himself but it only makes the need more pronounced— Kenjiro is an alpha, too, and the scent of them both in the room is making Wolf shake. 

“You remember Lord Kuro’s shinobi.”

Kenjiro drinks the rest of the sake in his cup and tosses it aside, standing to prowl across the room. He crouches at Wolf’s side, brushing stray hair out of his face, then pulling the tangle of his robes open the rest of the way. The air in the room is cool against his overheated skin.

Kenjiro’s fingers are cool as they trail down Wolf’s body, sliding across his nipple, making his stomach jump. His ribs are more pronounced after weeks of near starvation. He traces over a jutting hip, fingertips teasing over the edges of his slit to make Wolf shiver. His hand is wet with slick when he brings it to his mouth, licking the shining fluid off as he holds Wolf’s gaze. A growl rumbles low in his throat, and he looks up at Genichiro with a wide grin.

“It seems I’m hungry after all.”

Genichiro huffs a laugh and lifts his foot off Wolf’s throat.

“Careful. This one has teeth. Once he isn’t in quite such a pathetic state he’ll be inclined to use them.”

Kenjiro splays a hand over Wolf’s chest to keep him pressed tight against the floor, scars on his face shining strangely in the firelight.

“I think I’ll manage,” he says. It sounds amused.

“I’m sure you will.”

Then Genichiro is gone, and some buried part of Wolf doesn’t know whether to be relieved or afraid. It doesn’t matter.

Wolf isn’t Wolf anymore. Wolf is all hunger and want and he fingers himself and writhes and makes sounds he cannot recognize as his own.

“Look at you. Eager thing.” Kenjiro wraps his fingers around Wolf’s wrist and pins it beside his head. “None of that. Let me take care of it, pet.”

Kenjiro shoves three fingers into Wolf, letting go of his wrist to untie his robes. Wolf gasps, grabbing onto Kenjiro’s arm to hold it in place, eyes rolling back into his head. An alpha’s touch. An alpha’s scent.

Wolf comes with a shudder, and Kenjiro laughs, working his cock lazily with his other hand.

“I’ve never been with an omega in heat before. Everyone is always so protective. I can see what all the fuss is about. Open up, little one.”

Kenjiro presses the tip of his cock against Wolf’s slit and he throws his knees so wide it hurts. There is no slow, easy slide— Kenjiro slams himself in to the hilt, and Wolf comes again, muscles clenching at the base of Kenjiro where his knot is only beginning to thicken. He gives a few rough thrusts, Wolf’s lashes fluttering as he sinks into it. The pain starts to ebb, giving way to something liquid and warm and overwhelming. 

Nothing has ever felt this good. Nothing ever will again. Kenjiro nuzzles into Wolf’s throat, dragging his face back and forth across his glands, making his scent flare up in the air around them. When he rubs his own throat against Wolf’s, marking him instinctively, something in Wolf unwinds. 

Kenjiro sinks in his teeth, and the omega that has always been buried in him is euphoric with the rightness of it; one of the strongest alphas in all of Ashina, claiming him. It should hurt, how hard he’s being taken, but Wolf only wants more. He’s clinging to Kenjiro with his hand and moaning into his gag, his silk robes ruined with slick where they’re tangled up beneath him.

When Wolf shivers through another climax, and another, Kenjiro pulls back and tilts his head to the side, brows furrowed as he smiles.

“You love this,” he says, like it is a surprise. Wolf nods his head frantically, so far out of himself he might as well be someone else entirely. Of course he loves it.

It is what he was made for; to lay back and part his thighs.

To be filled, and bred, belly round with his alpha’s child. He groans at the thought, palm sliding to rub over his abdomen. The ache is still there, low in his stomach. Kenjiro catches the motion, giving a particularly hard thrust as his eyes glint with new hunger. He splays his hand on Wolf’s chest again, pushing down with all his weight and fucking him harder. 

He buries his fingers in Wolf’s hair and pulls.

Wolf goes limp. Goes where Kenjiro puts him.

“Oh, little one. I think I’m going to keep you.”

That is all Wolf wants; to be taken, and marked, and kept. He tilts his throat to the side, exposing the bloody imprints of Kenjiro’s teeth. It is all the invitation Kenjiro needs to bury them in Wolf again.

Kenjiro finishes like that, Wolf’s blood in his mouth, cunt clutching desperately at him to try and hold Kenjiro inside. His knot swells, locking them together as he comes in hot bursts deep in Wolf’s belly. Only then does the pain fade entirely, further away with each pulse of seed in him, body drinking it in like dry earth soaking up rain.

Wolf’s eyes are lidded, instincts humming with contentment. He has never been at peace like this before; not after a long week of training, or a difficult kill. Wolf blinks up at Kenjiro, covered in sweat and flushed bright, drool dripping out from beneath the gag. Kenjiro finally releases his bite, sitting up shoving his fingers into the marks he left behind.

“Mine,” he says, like he’s testing the word. He presses his fingers harder. The sting makes Wolf tremble. “Mine,” he says again, resolved this time. Wolf nods dazedly, and Kenjiro grins. Later, it will be terrifying.

Now, it makes the omega in him light up with joy.

It’s hard to catch his breath— Kenjiro is still coming, filling him up in shuddering twitches. After a moment Kenjiro pulls his gag free, reaching for a nearby gourd. 

“Are you thirsty?” Kenjiro asks, and Wolf nods, opening his mouth as Kenjiro tilts the gourd.

He is expecting water, but is met with the sharp bite of sake instead. Kenjiro makes soothing noises, coaxing Wolf to drink. He sputters, and chokes. It spills down his chin, into his hair, over his chest.

“I’m going to take such good care of you, pet.”

Wolf whines, and nods.

-

All of Wolf’s knowledge about heats has come secondhand until now. Even then, there is nothing about omegas who’ve been poisoning themselves for years with tea just to keep their cycles at bay. It is all worthless anyway.

Every thought in his head is miles away. Kenjiro fucks him hard, pressing his knees into his chest and pounding into him, or putting him facedown on the floor. They end up on Kenjiro’s futon eventually, Wolf drooling into the fabric, boneless and shivering through his orgasms. He cries with the relief of it all. Kenjiro’s knot is painfully large, but Wolf’s cunt clutches at it, holds it in place as Kenjiro fills him again and again. 

When they are tied together, Kenjiro lets him sleep. It is the only rest he gets.

It is the only rest he wants. If Kenjiro’s knot isn’t locked between his thighs, he aches.

He pours water and sake into Wolf’s mouth and gives him messy kisses. Kenjiro calls him precious, and litters bite marks over his throat and chest. Sinks his teeth into the insides of Wolf’s thighs, then fingers his filthy cunt until he cries again. His face is wet with tears. The sheets are messy with slick, and come, and blood.

It is not all from Kenjiro’s bites. There is a viciousness to the way he takes Wolf; a hurt Wolf can almost feel under the drugged bliss of his heat. There is pain just out of reach. Wolf turns away from it and wallows in the simplicity of being owned.

Sometimes Kenjiro lays on his back and lets Wolf straddle him, but he is too weak to do the work. Kenjiro lifts him up and down, meeting every movement with a brutal thrust. Sometimes they both lay on the futon on their sides, and Kenjiro holds him close, grinding into him from behind.

Time passes in a blur— it is dark outside Kenjiro’s window, then it is light again, the sun in Wolf’s eyes. Night, and day, and night. Nothing else changes. 

There is Kenjiro’s knot in his cunt, and Kenjiro’s teeth in his throat. Kenjiro’s fingers pinning him down. 

Kenjiro’s come deep in his belly, making Wolf warm all over. 

Towards the end of things, Wolf is liquid and useless. His muscles will barely cling to Kenjiro’s knot anymore. His eyes will barely stay open. 

Kenjiro touches him almost reverently now when they’re tied together, laying a possessive hand on Wolf’s belly.

“Precious little thing,” Kenjiro says, kissing Wolf’s jaw with a smile. “You’re home now. I’m never letting you go.”

It is a threat that sounds like a promise.

It is a promise that sounds like a threat.

Kenjiro nuzzles his bloody throat and shoves a palm between his thighs, as though it is a comfort to feel Wolf’s slit wet and well used under his hand.

They fall asleep together.

That place inside Wolf that holds his dread starts to simmer, but it is still too far away.

-

Wolf wakes. The haze of his heat is gone.

All the heat in the world is gone, and Wolf is so cold he’s shaking. Kenjiro is curled around him, one hand still shoved between his legs like a child clinging to a toy in his sleep. Wolf is sore all over— his throat and thighs are covered in open wounds from Kenjiro’s teeth. There are scratches down his back from Kenjiro’s nails, scabbed over and raw. Everything hurts even before he sucks in a ragged breath and winces at the sting of cracked ribs. There is no fog of unreality, no blessed haze of forgetfulness.

Wolf remembers everything. Wolf  _ feels  _ everything.

There is come dripping out of his cunt, and slick dried on the inside of his thighs. An alpha’s teeth in his throat. 

An alpha’s seed in his womb.  _ Kenjiro’s  _ seed, taking root and binding him here, to a place he was trying to leave behind. He spent most of his heat with Kenjiro knotted in him. There is no way it didn’t take; Wolf wants to draw a knife and cut it out, then shudders all over in revulsion at the thought.

Wolf smells like ozone and Ashina and there is a twisting sensation low in his stomach as it rebels with everything in him. 

It is an easy thing to slip out of Kenjiro’s hold. The shaking only starts once he is free, dizziness overwhelming him as he gets to his feet. He tries to swallow around the need to be sick— he doesn’t want to wake Kenjiro, but his body will not wait. 

Wolf stumbles to the corner as quietly as he can and retches. It is nothing but bile tinged with the sharp scent of sake. He wipes his mouth with trembling fingers. He is shivering so hard that it hurts his bones.

More of Kenjiro’s seed drips out of Wolf, and there is desperation rising in him. It is worse than when he lost his arm— the sensation that there is something he can do, some way to go back and erase everything. Gain back to pieces of himself that he has lost.

Pieces he’s given to Kenjiro, however unwillingly.

Wolf thinks of his father. Wolf thinks of Kuro. Wolf looks down at himself, jaw shuddering, every inch of him filthy.

Wolf thinks about sinking into deep water and never coming up again.

Shame is a useless thing that had been beaten out of Wolf when his wrist still ached under the weight of a katana, a stranger’s blood splashed over his face and a trail of bodies in his wake.

_ They were weak and you are strong,  _ Owl said, Wolf’s chin pinched between his broad fingers.

_ Anything you took from them was yours to take. _

Wolf retches again, dry heaving when there is nothing left in his stomach, then looking around the room for his clothes. There are only the gauzy consort robes; Kenjiro’s clothes are there, but they are far too big for him to move in, and Wolf will need every bit of agility he can muster if he is going to get out of the castle. He pulls the white robes on, very deliberately not paying attention to how ruined they are with the same mess that is all over him. 

Something twinges sharply between his thighs as he slips out the window. Something is torn. It is no surprise.

The rooftops are quiet, though he knows there are nightjar lurking out of sight. Wolf creeps to the edge and looks down. There are flashes of memory that he knows will live in him always. Kenjiro’s teeth in his throat. Kenjiro’s knot splitting him open.

The wordless way Wolf begged for it all, with breathy whimpers and spread thighs and his fingers in Kenjiro’s hair. It was a betrayal. Wolf has never been betrayed before; betrayal takes trust, and Wolf only trusts his father and himself.

It seems that trust was misplaced. All the things he’s heard his whole life are true, in spite of all the times he has dismissed them. All the times he thought he was stronger. Thought he was  _ better. _

First, he is an omega. There is no room for anything else.

It is so far down to the ground. If Wolf lets himself fall, it will break him. He thinks about his skull cracking open, spilling everything inside out onto the earth. Wonders, when he comes back together, if he would remember. 

If he would forget. 

The wind is viciously cold, blowing his hair around his face. There is snow falling, dusting everything with white. The roof tiles are slippery under his bare feet. It is such a long way to Hirata, and even that is not home. Not anymore.

Not without Kuro.

Wolf curls in on himself. Let out a hitching sob that he muffles in his hand. He cannot save Kuro like this, but running feels ugly and his whole body resists.

The whistle is drawn out, unmistakable. Wolf’s head snaps to the window he just crawled out of to see Kenjiro there, his expression dark. The sky is blanketed in snow clouds but now lightning cracks through it all, a threat as surely as any arrow or blade. 

He takes the last step off the roof, out onto nothing but open air. Kenjiro’s eyes widen with something that might have been fear, except that Wolf doesn’t know if he’s capable of that. The scars on his face make it look like something else entirely. 

Like Kenjiro has poured anger over everything that has ever made him feel afraid.

Wolf doesn’t get the chance to hit the ground. A nightjar swoops down from the sky and slams into him, knocking him back onto the roof with a clatter. The pain is something separate from the rest of him.

Wolf wonders how long that will be true.

There are no weapons on his back or at his hip but that doesn’t stop Wolf from reaching, fingers trying to close on hilts that are long gone. Still, even without a blade in his hand he cannot give in entirely. All he needs is a moment. He doesn’t have to win.

He only needs to fall. Wolf wrestles a tanto out of the sheath on the nightjar’s belt and sinks it deep into their belly. They make a noise of surprise and pull backwards, which is the last thing they should have done. He slits their throat, and they drop to their knees and slide off the roof, clothes fluttering for a long moment before they hit the ground with a faraway thud. Wolf scrambles towards the edge of the roof after them, but fingers close around his ankle and jerk him back.

Another trio of nightjar have made their way to Wolf. Fighting them is useless, but Wolf can’t just stop. They take his blade after he makes a few superficial cuts. They pin him to the roof and chain his ankles together. He looks over at the window with his face pressed to the tiles to find Kenjiro staring back.

“Bring him to me,” Kenjiro says, and they drag Wolf to his feet.

Kenjiro reaches out and takes him, more gently than Wolf expects. He holds Wolf like a new bride, looking down at him with his brows furrowed.

“Where were you going, little wife? I am not done with you,” Kenjiro murmurs, arms curling around Wolf until he can lay a big palm over his belly. “You have something of mine. You  _ are  _ something of mine. If you think I will let you slip away now, you are a fool.”

Wolf wants to run, but there is no escape.

There is not even death. There is only his weakness, and his chains.

Kenjiro’s mark on his throat. Kenjiro’s child in his stomach.

There are a handful of servants in Kenjiro’s quarters now, most of them omega women with their eyes down. There are a pair of alpha soldiers staring straight ahead, hands twitchy on their swords. There is a beta elite as well, no weapons to be seen, holding a large blanket. Kenjiro walks towards them and passes Wolf over. The beta wraps him up but doesn’t look at him.

“Get my wife cleaned up. Make him beautiful. You have your instructions.” Kenjiro reaches out and brushes Wolf’s hair out of his eyes. “These omegas should be familiar to you. They are what is left of the servants from the Hirata estate. I thought you might enjoy their company.”

Wolf doesn’t look at them. 

They take Wolf from the room, and down the hall, and it should be a relief to be away from Kenjiro but it is not. Wolf tells himself it’s because he is still a prisoner, and not because his instincts want to be close to his alpha. Not because his body is betraying him again. 

Wolf tells himself, and knows it’s a lie.

-

They carry him down, down, down, until Wolf thinks maybe they are returning him to the dungeon after all. They end up at the baths instead. The elite carrying him holds him tighter for a moment to get his attention but still doesn’t meet his eyes.

“If you are going to make a scene, I would ask that you spare the servants any harm. It would be better for you, and all of us, if you behaved yourself. Lord Kenjiro instructed us to cut off your legs if you tried to escape again before his heir is born.”

As if Wolf would do harm to the women who called Hirata home alongside him. As if Kenjiro did not know this, and gather them close just to keep Wolf from lashing out.

The elite sets him carefully down on a low wooden stool as the servants start filling buckets.

Kenjiro’s heir. It is like being doused in cold water.

Like being told he will give birth to a snake. 

Wolf lays a palm over his stomach. Wonders if he could gut himself before anyone could stop him. Wonders if he is even capable of such a thing. 

“Whatever you endure here at Kenjiro’s hands,” the elite says, still staring stoically at the wall, “it will be preferable to the things he will do to you if you harm his child.”

Wolf knows it is true, but when he drifts out of himself it is with daydreams of burying a wakizashi in his abdomen. Of sinking to the bottom of the river and watching the air bubble out of his lungs. Of burning, burning, burning.

If Wolf turned to ash, would he come back again? He doesn’t know. Already the fire feels like it is calling him home.

The servants are gentle but thorough. They scrub Wolf down with rice bran, then scrub him down a second time. They offer him the silk pouch so he can wash between his own thighs, then hand it back when he doesn’t clean himself to their standards. Wolf washes again, wincing. There is blood on the silk when he gives it back.

They call him Lord Wolf as they move him where they need him to be, softly, like they are afraid they should not. Their voices are familiar. Wolf keeps his eyes away and lets the roar in his head swallow up the part of his mind that wants to put names and faces to the sound of their words. He’s coaxed into the baths for a while, then dragged back out again. They lay him on a mat and spread his hair out over the wooden framework of an incense burner to perfume it. 

Then they pull out a razor and start shaving him. Wolf tenses all over, breath coming faster as the blade is dragged slowly up his shins, over his thighs. They are careful around Kenjiro’s bites, but there is no way to do it painlessly. When his legs are bare they are pressed further apart.

Wolf closes his eyes and turns his head away as they shave his cunt— it is already sore, and they have to draw his skin tight to get things smooth. These are people he shared meals with, people he protected.

People he failed, and now they are being forced to turn him into Kenjiro’s plaything. 

Shame is a useless thing, but Wolf carries it nonetheless. 

Wolf is a useless thing. It is only right that he bear it. 

When they are finished there is pain beating through him with every heartbeat. He doesn’t open his eyes again.

The rest is easier; his arms, his chest, his face. When they urge him into the baths a second time, it feels more like they are giving a moment of peace than anything else. He soaks in the water, skin hypersensitive where he’s clean shaven in places that he’s never used a razor before. One of the servants gives him water to drink, and Wolf empties the gourd before he realizes just how dehydrated he’s become. They fill it again, and again, and Wolf drinks until his stomach aches.

When they pull him from the water, they are far from done with him. They dress him in a robe and take him back to Kenjiro’s quarters. Kenjiro himself is nowhere to be seen. There is a new chest in the room, opened to show mounds of fine silk kimono. The styles are all clearly feminine, and more ornate than a typical lady of nobility would wear. There is also a box piled high with jeweled hair combs and necklaces laced with jade, as well as a set of cosmetics. White powder for the face. Red for the lips, and eyes, and cheeks. It had to have cost a small fortune to get so much lavish clothing and jewelry, especially on such short notice. It feels scandalous just looking at it in the castle.

It looks like it all came straight out of a brothel. 

One of the servants kneels in front of Wolf, and he drops down to his own knees without thinking, eyes still on the floor.

“Lord Kenjiro has things to attend to today. He will be back this evening. We’ve been instructed to serve you in his absence, and prepare you for him. If you are hungry we can bring you a meal. Otherwise we will be back a little later to dress you and do your makeup.” 

She says it like an apology. Wolf doesn’t say anything back. The thought of food makes him feel sick. Everything makes him feel sick.

The servant touches his hand. Leans in closer to whisper.

“There are nightjar outside the window, and soldiers in the hall. You are all Lord Kuro has left. Please don’t put yourself at risk, Lord Wolf. He could not bear to lose you.”

The servants leave the room, and Wolf is left alone. There are no weapons. Wolf is so tired that even breathing is a chore.

The only futon in the room in Kenjiro’s, made up with fresh bedding like an omega’s nest. Too many blankets, too many pillows.

Wolf crawls into the corner and lays down on the floor. He closes his eyes. Sleep feels far away, but it comes in like the tide to take him.

If only it would not give him back.


	2. Sink

Wolf is woken with a gentle hand on his shoulder and soft voice calling his name; it is Asa and Furi, two of the servants who tended to Kuro’s aunt at Hirata before she died. In his drowsiness his mind finds their names unbidden, and won’t let him put them away again. 

“Lord Kenjiro will be here shortly. We must get you ready.”

There are few things he wants less than to be made up like a whore for Kenjiro; other people being punished for his disobedience is one of them. Asa tugs on his robes and he stands and follows her where the light is better. They kneel in front of one another, and she pulls out her brushes and gets to work.

Wolf looks anywhere but at her while she brushes white powder on his face. Furi is humming as she sorts through the clothes, a nervous habit he remembers well enough from Hirata that the urge to try and comfort her is overwhelming. Wolf doesn’t have any comfort in him, though, so he closes his eyes and stays still. Asa lines his brows with black, then takes the rouge and paints his lips in vivid red, more heavily than any woman of repute would be caught dead wearing. She lines his eyes in red as well, and paints it over his cheeks and fingernails. His hair comes next, Asa combing through it and twisting it into an ornate bun on top of his head.

“Finished,” Asa says, then catches his hand as he lifts it towards his face. “Don’t make a mess of it or I’ll have to start over.”

Wolf has already made a mess of enough things. He drops his hand again and lets Furi pull him to his feet.

Getting dressed is much faster. Furi wraps him in layers of silk, tying his obi with expert precision, making sure it is adjusted perfectly. It fits him better than he expects, like it was made for him, but there is no way it was all sewn in a day. He wonders if they were pulled out of some noble woman’s closet, though there is no trace of wear.

There is a bronzed mirror across from him that wasn’t there before, easily as tall as Wolf. When he looks into it there is a stranger looking back at him. He can smell the incense in his hair, which glitters with jeweled hair sticks. Bright red silks. A bright red mouth.

Bright red bites on his throat. 

“We will be back tomorrow, my lord.”

He doesn’t look like a lord.

He looks like someone a lord would throw a handful of coins at before they ordered them down on their knees.

He stares for a long while at his reflection. He can still scent Kenjiro on his skin.

Wolf goes to his knees there. His legs won’t keep him upright any longer. The window is like a siren’s song, but Wolf doesn’t turn to look at it. It is one thing to know he will be brutalized if he tries to escape.

It is another entirely to know that others might be brutalized in his stead. Wolf can wait until he is strong enough.

That is what he tells himself as he lays a hand over his belly and waits.

-

It’s dark outside the window when Kenjiro comes. He’s carrying Wolf’s gourd and a plate with what looks like ohagi. Wolf hasn’t been hungry all day and refused food when Asa and Furi offered, but he can’t help the way his eyes linger on it. He has always had a weakness for sweet things.

Then his eyes land on Kenjiro, and all thoughts of sweets are gone. The rage that had been present in Kenjiro that morning seems to have dissipated. He looks Wolf over with blatant appreciation, gaze lit up with hunger. His hair is falling loose over the scars on the side of his face, but Wolf can still make out the edges of them. 

Kenjiro is like a storm brewing, and Wolf knows exactly where it will strike.

“Little wife, you clean up beautifully.”

Wolf looks at the floor. Kenjiro sets his plate and the gourd down and crouches in front of Wolf, gripping his jaw and lifting his chin. 

“Look at me.” 

Wolf hesitates, and Kenjiro squeezes until he meets his eyes. Kenjiro’s stare is calculating, brows drawn together. 

A lifetime with Owl has given Wolf the ability to keep himself utterly blank. He is thankful for it now.

As thankful as he can be for anything when he has failed so thoroughly at everything.

“We’re going to forget about this morning. You are in a new place, both physically and… socially. Omegas are volatile things, especially after a heat. I won’t punish you for giving in to your nature, but it will not happen again. From now on you will behave yourself, and things will be very easy for you. You need do nothing except keep my bed warm. And if your heat has taken the way I think it has,” Kenjiro murmurs as he slides his other hand down to palm Wolf’s belly, “you will take good care of my child. It is the heir to all of Ashina.” 

Kenjiro rubs his palm in circles, as though he can feel it there. Maybe he can.

Maybe Wolf can. He swallows around the need to be sick and holds Kenjiro’s gaze through sheer force of will.

“So you will stay where I put you, and you will eat the food you’re brought, and you will do nothing to put yourself or my child at risk. If you do as I say? You will live the kind of life omegas only dream of, all your needs attended in the lap of luxury. If you try to run, or hurt my child or yourself in any way?” Kenjiro squeezes Wolf’s face until he knows there will be bruises.

Wolf doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t breathe.

Doesn’t dare.

“Do I need to make myself clearer?” Kenjiro asks, a possessive hand like a brand on Wolf’s stomach, eyes roving over his face. 

Wolf thinks of all the hours he spent crouching in the dark. All the days, weeks, months he spent trailing after someone, soft footfalls and quiet breathing, nothing but a pair of eyes in the night. All the times he has died, and come back again. Swords, and bullets, and teeth.

Doujun’s relentless knife. 

Wolf has endured atrocities worse than Kenjiro.

He can endure this. He can come out the other side. Not whole, not anymore, but himself. A shinobi.

Wolf.

He tilts his head to the side in submission, exposing the part of his throat with the most bites. Kenjiro smiles and eases his grip on Wolf’s face.

“Oh, little wife. I knew you would be good for me.” Kenjiro tucks his nose into Wolf’s throat and breathes in deep. “You still smell like me. Gods, I could get used to that. Today was so tedious knowing you were waiting here for me, all dressed up and nowhere to go.”

Kenjiro licks over the bite marks on Wolf’s throat, nuzzling at them, hands tugging Wolf’s kimono higher on his thighs. He slides his palm up Wolf’s calf, making an appreciative noise at the smoothness.

“So soft for me,” he says, pulling back to look at Wolf’s face. “Your servants did well. I thought you would appreciate the familiar faces.” He reaches up and drags his thumb across Wolf’s bottom lip, smearing the red down over his chin. Kenjiro stares for a long moment with something like wonder. “You’re different now that your cycle has passed, but you are no less mine.”

Then he leans in and kisses him hard. Wolf does not kiss him back. Memories of his heat dig into him like teeth, a sharp sting down in Wolf where he cannot ease it. The way he pressed so earnestly into Kenjiro’s mouth. The way he yielded.

How grateful he was for everything Kenjiro gave him. 

Even the child in his belly.

Wolf gags and tries to pull back but Kenjiro doesn’t give him any space. He grabs Wolf’s hair, fingers closing like a fist around the bun and tugging until Wolf lifts his chin higher. The sticks come loose but Kenjiro’s grip is tight, stray hair falling out around Wolf’s face.

“I know you can do better than that, pet,” Kenjiro says, sinking his teeth into Wolf’s bottom lip and tugging.

Blood fills Wolf’s mouth and trickles down his chin as Kenjiro slides his free hand deeper under Wolf’s kimono. He traces over the bites on the inside of Wolf’s thigh with his fingertips, shoving their mouths together again. Wolf opens his mouth obediently, closing his eyes and trying to weather Kenjiro as best he can. 

It is easier than it should be to go through the motions. He kisses Kenjiro back, stomach turning with nausea when Kenjiro all but purrs in response. Wolf wonders if his body will be able to do this without his input after a while, the way it follows through a strike with his katana or flings shuriken when he isn’t consciously aiming. Wonders if he can drift somewhere far away while his skin and bones do as Kenjiro bids.

Then Kenjiro presses his fingers into Wolf’s cunt and he hisses before he can stop himself. It is the shock more than the pain itself— Wolf is used to taking a knife. Used to bones breaking, and the sting of bullets.

He is not used to this. Kenjiro  _ croons,  _ the sound rumbling through Wolf and hitting him somewhere low in his abdomen.

“The doctor told me that most omegas are tender after a heat and to be careful with you, but you aren’t most omegas, are you?” 

Kenjiro picks Wolf up in a rush and carries him to the futon, laying him down gently in the nest there. He shoves his fingers back into Wolf’s slit, watching him wince, reaching for the gourd and lifting it to his lips. Kenjiro presses it to Wolf’s mouth, forcing him to drink. Water spills down his chin and into his clothes but he drinks as much as he can— already he can feel the waters settling in his stomach, easing some of his aches and pains.

Kenjiro twists his fingers in Wolf and he bares his teeth. There is no more pain; there is only pleasure now, heat gone but body remembering too well just how good Kenjiro made him feel.

Wolf wishes for the hurt again. Wishes for the ache.

Wishes he didn’t want to push into the touch, and feels sick when he does.

“Shhhh, it’s okay pet. Let me kiss you better.”

He takes a moment to tug Wolf’s kimono open, until he is laid bare on Kenjiro’s futon like an offering. 

Then he presses his face between Wolf’s thighs and licks into his cunt. His eyes go wide, mouth falling open as his fingers tangle instinctively in Kenjiro’s hair. 

No one has ever done this to Wolf before Kenjiro; no one else has ever kissed him, or touched him, or taken him. Wolf did not know alphas did this to their mates. Wolf does not know why Kenjiro is doing it to him; he is likely already with child, and even if he weren’t, this wouldn’t help matters. 

It feels so good that Wolf forgets how to breathe. Being shaved only makes it worse, the slide of skin on skin like nothing he’s ever experienced. He arches in Kenjiro’s futon, cunt pulsing with slick as Kenjiro laps hungrily at him. Wolf thought omegas only got wet during a heat.

Wolf thought a lot of things that he now knows are wrong.

Kenjiro swallows Wolf cock down, sucking at it gently where it juts out from the folds of his slit. It fits neatly into his mouth without even pressing at the back of his throat, just a few inches. Smaller than anyone else Wolf has ever seen, but then, Wolf has never seen another male omega. Kenjiro is crooning against him, pulling off his cock to lave at his cunt a while then taking it into his mouth again. 

Pleasure wells up in him in a way that is utterly foreign, nothing like when Kenjiro was fucking him through his heat. It rolls up slowly, pulling him taut. It is almost frighteningly intense, and Wolf’s body goes tight all over. He is afraid it will drift away.

He is afraid it will not.

Wolf shakes, and whines, and comes, cunt twitching around Genichiro’s tongue as he drinks up Wolf’s slick. Kenjiro eats him through it and doesn’t stop, even when the sensation is too much and Wolf wants to twist away. He starts making pathetic noises and trying to shift his hips but Kenjiro pins him down with a growl.

“Be  _ still,”  _ he commands, and Wolf cannot obey.

He trembles and pulls Kenjiro’s hair and chokes on the ecstasy, thighs quivering and body refusing to quiet. Wolf comes again, and Kenjiro does not stop then, either. It feels so good it hurts again. 

Wolf is a slave to it.

He loses track of how many times Kenjiro pulls him apart. Wolf only knows he’s crying when Kenjiro finally mouths his way up Wolf’s body to kiss him again, makeup streaked with tears and hair fallen down from his thrashing. He can taste himself on Kenjiro’s tongue. He doesn’t even try to stop himself from yielding to it.

“That’s it, precious,” Kenjiro says, pressing into his cunt without mercy. “Just let me.”

It is almost a relief to be fucked after so much overpowering sensation, but the moment of solace is short lived. Kenjiro was not simply relentless because of Wolf’s heat, it seems.

There is nothing but aggression in the way he takes him. It is better than before because it is stark, and rough. Kenjiro pulls his hair and bites him, manhandling Wolf this way and that. Wolf prefers this to the gentleness of before, because Kenjiro is getting something out of it. It makes sense that he wants to fuck Wolf, as opposed to drawing Wolf’s own pleasure out until he cannot stand it anymore.

Wolf can understand this; can understand why Kenjiro wants it. 

Can understand why his own instincts want it.

Kenjiro finally knots him, nuzzling into Wolf’s gory throat. The gourd hasn’t healed the bites entirely— something about hormones, Wolf thinks dazedly. They are mating bites. They will always linger where other wounds would disappear. 

“Oh little wife,” Kenjiro purrs, dragging his nose up Wolf’s jaw. “You’re  _ divine.” _

He thinks of blood. Thinks of Kuro.

Wolf closes his eyes and looks away.

-

It is routine.

It is something Wolf falls into without realizing. All his life has been structured around someone else’s commands. It is no different, now.

Each day Wolf wakes up with Kenjiro pawing at him, kissing his mating bites and telling him he’s beautiful. Kenjiro mouths at his belly adoringly, then eases himself into Wolf’s cunt and fucks him hard before the sun has finished rising. Afterwards he leaves, at least for a while.

Once he is gone Asa and Furi come back to tend to Wolf. They take him to the baths and let him wash himself, shaving him carefully every time and then leaving him to his own devices in Kenjiro’s quarters. They bring him food; he eats now. The hunger gnawing at his belly is something that can no longer be ignored.

Wolf doesn’t think about it. It’s possible that he isn’t actually with child— first heats often aren’t fertile, and it’s too early for any real symptoms. Wolf tries not to cling to hope.

Wolf tries not to cling to anything.

Kenjiro says his scent has changed.  _ You smell like me, pet,  _ and Wolf tries to pretend it isn’t true, but it always smells like a storm is brewing even when the sky is clear. It isn’t coming from outside.

It is coming from  _ him.  _ Sakura, and ozone. The threat of rain.

Wolf spends his days curled up in the corner at first, staring at nothing and listening to the soft sounds of the castle around him. As time goes on desperation turns to boredom and he starts training again. If he is ever going to be free of Ashina— if he is ever going to get  _ Kuro  _ free of Ashina, he will need to be strong. Sometimes he is too tired after Kenjiro’s endless attention, but usually he manages to drag himself off the floor and try. His body goes through the motions automatically. Wolf learns to adjust for his missing limb. Learns that he is off balance.

Learns that he is weak, and works to change that. He fatigues easily but it is at least a welcome discomfort; a pain he inflicts on himself, as opposed to one that is inflicted on him.

When he can no longer push himself, he crawls into the window and sits on the roof just outside. The nightjar eye him warily but he doesn’t try to escape. Doesn’t try to jump. Wolf watches the kite nightjar swooping through the sky around the castle, soldiers going about their patrols, nobles milling through the streets. Freedom isn’t something Wolf really understands. 

It is enough to feel the sun on his face.

It is enough to look at something besides Kenjiro’s walls, and Kenjiro’s clothes, and Kenjiro’s bed. Asa and Furi come back in the evenings to dress him and apply his makeup, making sure it is immaculate.

Then Kenjiro comes in and ruins it all in a matter of minutes. Every day is easier.

Every day is harder. Wolf stares at the stark red and white makeup, the elaborate kimono, the dramatic jewelry. It does not matter that he looks like a whore; Wolf only leaves Kenjiro’s rooms to go down to baths. Usually with Asa and Furi, but sometimes Kenjiro carries him there, setting Wolf in his lap in the baths and fucking him ragged in the steaming waters. The rest of his time is spent in Kenjiro’s futon, tangled up with Kenjiro and gasping for breath as he’s fucked apart.

Kenjiro always eats him out first. Wolf dreads it.

Wolf yearns for it. Wolf hates it, and loves it.

Hates the way he loves it.

He will not even think of fucking Wolf until he’s come a dozen times on his tongue. Until just Kenjiro’s breath on his cunt is enough to have him shaking. Wolf gets wet just looking at Kenjiro now, like a dog trained to alert to the sight of his owner. Kenjiro can scent it, how Wolf is slick and wanting when he comes into the room. 

_ You are the only omega I’ve been with who loves this the way I do,  _ Kenjiro says, lapping at Wolf’s cunt tirelessly.  _ I never understood what it was like to make someone else feel so good. _

_ You were made for me, pet. _

Wolf wasn’t made for Kenjiro. Wolf wasn’t made for anything.

Wolf should have been a corpse on a battlefield all those years ago. Everything since then has been a mistake.

Kenjiro fucks him hard, leaves bruises all over. The bites on Wolf’s neck never heal fully before there are more in their place. Wolf looks at them in the mirror, tracing them with his fingers. His body is not his own. Every inch of Wolf is traitorous, now. He looks at the window and thinks of falling. Looks at Kenjiro’s weapons and thinks of blood.

Looks at Asa and Furi and thinks of Kuro.

Goes down to his knees again, mouth parted and eyes shining in the dark.

Kenjiro teaches Wolf how to suck him off. Slowly, slowly; Wolf has a gag reflex and doesn’t know what he’s doing, but Kenjiro is more patient than Wolf would have expected. Soon he can press himself all the way into Wolf’s throat until it bulges. Wolf’s eyes sting, and tears run down his cheeks, makeup smearing as Kenjiro fucks his face. His lips stretch around him.

Kenjiro tells him he’s gorgeous. Kenjiro holds him close all night long.

Kenjiro leaves, and Wolf retches into the floor, curling into himself. He cannot make his body as small as it feels inside. Asa and Furi find himself clawing at his skin sometimes, like he could scratch it off if he tries hard enough. They tug his hands away and lead him downstairs, let him soak in the baths as long as he likes. Sometimes he floats out of himself, and they pull him from the waters and dress him with gentle hands. Wolf comes back to himself in his corner, a plate of food waiting, the solitude a blessing all its own. 

There is no point in pretending he doesn’t enjoy the things Kenjiro does to him. The omega in Wolf is drugged with happiness every time Kenjiro renews the mate marks on his throat or nuzzles into Wolf’s belly. He can scent the want on himself like a shroud.

His skin doesn’t crawl when Kenjiro touches him anymore. Wolf lays awake at night and stares at the ceiling.

Wolf sleeps on the floor when Kenjiro leaves. He cannot bear to stay in the futon they share. The scent of them tangled together is bad enough on his skin, let alone pulled into his lungs.

Kenjiro spends less time away from his quarters with each passing day. Asa and Furi arrive earlier and earlier, fretting over Wolf with frowns on their faces.

_ We spend all this time getting you ready and Lord Kenjiro just ruins it all. _

Wolf shrugs apologetically, and they tut and shake their heads. He does not think of what he used to be held up alongside what he has become now. There is only so much humiliation he can wallow in before it becomes meaningless. 

Soon they are coming right after breakfast, and instead of evenings spent with Kenjiro, it is entire days. Kenjiro feeds Wolf his meals by hand. Bathes Wolf himself. 

Fucks him for hours and hours, until he has to let Wolf drink from his gourd to keep him from wincing. Sometimes Wolf falls asleep from sheer exhaustion and Kenjiro just keeps rutting into him. Wolf wakes up rocking lazily, Kenjiro grinding into his cunt with a dazed grin. They doze, fuck, eat, and doze again. 

Kenjiro is missing war councils. Meetings with Ashina clan elders, and generals. Now that Isshin is ailing, Kenjiro and Genichiro are in charge of defending Ashina from the Ministry, but Kenjiro is spending all his time tangled in bed with Wolf. He doesn’t appear bothered by it.

Genichiro is, it seems. A servant comes to fetch Kenjiro one morning.  _ Lord Genichiro requests your presence in the war room,  _ and Kenjiro dismisses them with a thoughtless hum, mouth buried between Wolf’s thighs. They leave, and time passes. It has become mostly meaningless to Wolf. The sun is up, or it is not.

Kenjiro is fucking him, or he is not.

Later there are furious footsteps stomping down the hall. When the door flies open Wolf is on his knees, lips stretched around Kenjiro’s cock, tears streaking down his face. Kenjiro is working his knot into Wolf’s mouth, petting through his tangled hair. 

“Perfect, precious. Just like that.”

Wolf’s kimono is tugged open and falling off one shoulder. The scent of slick is thick in the air.

Genichiro is frozen in the doorway, staring as he breathes in deep. His eyes find Wolf and rove over him, fury dropping off his face to leave surprise there instead. There is a flare of something in the air that Wolf recognizes instantly.

It is want. Kenjiro’s want, except it is not. It is  _ Genichiro’s. _

The moment stretches between them, Kenjiro grinning at his brother from the chair he’s seated in, wiping a tear from Wolf’s face. The shame that lives in Wolf wells up anew, sharper than it has been in weeks. Being nothing more than a doll for Kenjiro to fuck is miserable enough when there is no one there to see. Asa and Furi love Wolf like a brother, and the anguish of being seen by them in such a state has long since faded.

Genichiro has no such love for Wolf.

Genichiro put Wolf here. Everything he suffers is at Genichiro’s hands first. Kenjiro is a beast who’s been given something to maul; it is in his nature to sink in his teeth.

It is Genichiro who threw Wolf to his favorite dog like a scrap of meat and left him there to rot.

It is Genichiro who Wolf kills in all his favorite dreams.

“Brother,” Kenjiro says, forcing his knot the rest of the way into Wolf’s mouth. “Did you need something?”

His voice is dripping with innuendo. Kenjiro’s knot pulses, and Wolf swallows the come that pours down his throat, only a few drops escaping to drip down his face. 

Genichiro takes a breath and squares his shoulder, jaw flexing as he dons his anger again like a mask. 

He looks so much like Kenjiro in that moment that Wolf’s heart twists with something that would be fear, if he remembered what it was to be afraid.

“If you’d be so generous as to grace us with your presence in the war room, we have things to discuss that are more important than playing with your favorite toy.”

Kenjiro hums, brushing Wolf’s hair out of his eyes. Wolf doesn’t flinch, anymore. It is better not to make Kenjiro angry.

“I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m almost finished with my  _ wife  _ for the moment. If it is so important you felt the need to interrupt us, I suppose I can come down.” Kenjiro glances at Genichiro again with a smirk, fisting his fingers in Wolf’s hair and tugging. “Unless you’d like to take a turn?”

Genichiro scowls and storms out of the room to the sound of Kenjiro’s laughter. 

Kenjiro leaves Wolf kneeling with come dripping down his chin, hair in shambles and kimono a mess. Wolf doesn’t bother moving.

Kenjiro will be back.

-

It is not the last time Genichiro finds them together. Sometimes in the baths Genichiro will appear in the doorway, lingering in the shadows where most people would not see. 

Wolf can see him there. Wolf can scent him there. 

Wolf is not quiet when Kenjiro takes him; he has learned that swallowing down the sounds he wants to let out will only make things worse. Kenjiro likes to hear him, Wolf’s cries echoing loud through the room. There is no way Genichiro does not hear Wolf well before he reaches the baths, and yet he comes anyway. Watches.

Wants.

Kenjiro has Wolf in his lap, weightless in the water as he makes Wolf do the work for him. He whimpers into Kenjiro’s throat as he rides him, cunt clutching at the swell of his knot.

He looks up and meets Genichiro’s eyes, mouth open with hair plastered to his face. Kenjiro always brings Wolf to baths after a hard day of training.

Genichiro always follows. Always watches. Kenjiro knows he’s there but he never says anything.

Wolf knows he’s there, but there is no point in speaking.

He hasn’t spoken a word to Kenjiro since his heat and he sees no reason to start now.

-

It is storming outside, thunder rumbling through Ashina as it often does, especially when one of the heirs is upset. Kenjiro has been gone most of the day; the more time he spends around his brother lately, the more likely it is to storm at the castle. They have been arguing more often than not.

About Wolf, more often than not. Kenjiro comes back to his quarters with a scowl on his face but it doesn’t linger long.

Wolf is already in disarray, hair pulled down and kimono tugged open. They’re sprawled together on Kenjiro’s futon, rain misting through the open window. It is cold out, but the irori in Kenjiro’s quarters is big enough that it makes no difference. He’s fingering Wolf, grinding the base of his hand against his cock as he urges him towards his next orgasm. Kenjiro is kissing him, pulling back to watch Wolf’s face contort as his thighs start shaking. He drags his nose up Wolf’s cheek. Meets his eyes, brows drawn together.

“I love you,” Kenjiro says, so earnestly Wolf feels sick. Kenjiro is staring expectantly, waiting. Wolf doesn’t say it back.

Wolf doesn’t say anything.

Kenjiro tilts his head to the side, fingers stilling in Wolf’s cunt.

“I  _ love you,”  _ he says again. So deliberately it is frightening, giving Wolf space to speak. 

Wolf knows what Kenjiro wants to hear, but cannot wrap his mind around it. Kenjiro doesn’t  _ love  _ him. Dogs don’t love the bones they gnaw on when they get bored, even if they love the taste. 

There is a flash of something hurt in Kenjiro’s expression.

It twists into something furious. Kenjiro, donning his rage like a mask. Lightning crashes loud outside the window.

Lightning crackles over Kenjiro’s arm, spilling down over his hand and into Wolf. He arches with the force of it, his whole body tensing. The pain is stark, arcing over his sex, centered between his thighs like he has been set alight. Wolf can taste the lightning on his tongue. Can feel it in the tense of his jaw, and the way his hand clenches into a fist. It is like nothing he has ever experienced.

It swallows him whole.

_ “I love you,”  _ Kenjiro says. It is an accusation. Wolf chokes on the words in his mouth, blood trickling from between his lips and pouring from his nose. 

The pain abates as Kenjiro pulls his lightning back, moving his fingers again, forcing the pleasure that had fallen away to rise in Wolf again. He rolls his hips into it unthinkingly. He is still so close to falling apart, even with the violence that is Kenjiro pressed so closely against him.

Wolf doesn’t say it back.

Wolf doesn’t say anything.

Kenjiro pulls the lightning down again, and Wolf bleeds from his ears, and trembles. He keeps moving his fingers. Wolf is on fire. Wolf is going to come. There is a rush of heat between his thighs as he pisses himself, unable to stop.

Wolf is crying, pulled taut like Genichiro’s bowstrings, jaw shivering as Kenjiro pushes the storm through his veins. When he draws it out of Wolf again, Kenjiro looks almost lost.

“I love you,” he says, and Wolf nods frantically, palm across his belly. Wolf wonders if there is a child there.

Wonders if it is dead now. If it is his fault as much as Kenjiro’s. If he should mourn.

If he should rejoice.

“I love you too, Kenjiro. I love you. I love you.”

Kenjiro kisses him. Twists his fingers until Wolf comes again. He’s gentler when he fucks Wolf that night. Gentler for Kenjiro is not gentle at all. Gentler for Kenjiro means less blood, and fewer bruises. Means he doesn’t choke, as much. Means he doesn’t cry.

As much.

Still, Wolf wishes he would make it hurt.

-

Kenjiro learns to wield his lightning like a scalpel instead of a sword. He runs the current over Wolf’s slit like a caress when he is on the edge of finishing. 

He teaches Wolf to say what he wants to hear, when he wants to hear it.

He teaches Wolf to come with just the lightning on his skin. 

They fall asleep together, Kenjiro’s nose in his hair.

“I love you, little wife.”

“I love you too, Kenjiro.”

-

Wolf wakes up so early the sun hasn’t yet risen, nausea surging in him like the tide. He barely manages to crawl out of the futon before he’s retching in the floor, nothing but the acidic bite of bile spilling over. It isn’t the first time he’s been sick, but it’s the first time in a while.

The first time it has nothing to do with shame.

There isn’t anything left in his stomach but he heaves nonetheless, abdomen clenching around emptiness and aching as he gags. When the spasms finally stop he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and finds Kenjiro staring.

Finds Kenjiro smiling. It takes a moment for Wolf to realize why.

Kenjiro tackles him back onto the futon and presses gentle kisses across his stomach.

“Oh little wife, you have done so well for me. The heir of all Ashina, right here under my hands.” Kenjiro looks up at Wolf from underneath his lashes, grinning against the curve of his belly. The barest swelling. Wolf hadn’t even noticed. “I love you, precious.”

“I love you, too,” Wolf says back thoughtlessly, mind a thousand miles away. He cannot be in himself right now. 

He cannot be anything.

Kenjiro slips down between his thighs and licks into him, and Wolf closes his eyes and presses into it. Being Kenjiro’s wife is like breathing, now.

Being Kenjiro’s  _ mate  _ is something else. Being the mother of Kenjiro’s  _ child.  _ He cannot think of it.

He cannot think at all.


	3. Borne

Wolf’s world is nausea and exhaustion.

Helplessness, and resignation, and Kenjiro.

Wolf gets sick every morning for weeks. He can keep down rice, but all the rich foods and sweets Kenjiro has taken great pleasure in feeding him by hand make Wolf gag and pull away. The weight he’s put on seems to vanish, the small swell of his belly making the rest of him look gaunt by comparison. Kenjiro abandons any pretense of helping Genichiro lead Ashina and spends his time plying Wolf with food. 

Then one morning he leaves, and returns with Doujun. 

Wolf is sitting in the window letting the breeze soothe some of his queasiness when Kenjiro comes into the room, Doujun following behind him with open curiosity on his face.

“I’ve brought someone to take a look at you,” Kenjiro says, holding out an arm as if to help Wolf down from the window. “Make sure everything is going well.”

Suddenly there are knives peeling back his skin and cutting through his bones again. Suddenly there are hands cracking his ribs open, fingers tracing over his heart as it beats. Someone touching places in Wolf that were never meant to be touched, cutting him open to play with what was inside. There is more inside him now.

There is  _ someone  _ inside him now.

Wolf bares his teeth and snarls like an animal, landing on the floor in a crouch. He keeps his back to the wall, slinking around the room without getting closer to Doujun. Leaning against the edge of the irori is a long iron poker for tending the fire; Wolf grabs it, holding it in front of him. The weight of it is familiar. It is what he uses in place of a sword to go through his training forms.

It is what he will kill Kenjiro with if he ever gets the chance. If he is brave enough.

If he is afraid enough.

Kenjiro cocks his head to the side like he is catching a scent he can’t quite decipher, eyes narrowing at Wolf, and then Doujun. Wolf doesn’t look away from Doujun, what remains of his left arm pressed against himself. He wants to curl the limb he doesn’t have around his belly.

He wants to drive the iron through Doujun’s heart and watch him choke.

“He won’t hurt you,” Kenjiro says, but it sounds like a question. He is right; Doujun  _ won’t  _ hurt Wolf.

Wolf will kill him first. His lip curls as he snarls again. He can see Kenjiro coming closer in his periphery, but he will not look away. Then Kenjiro is close enough that Wolf can scent him, and he steps behind him without thinking, pressed against his side. Seeking protection from his alpha instinctively.

As though Kenjiro will keep him  _ safe.  _

There is so much wrong with the notion that Wolf can’t process it, but it is true all the same. Kenjiro will not let Doujun hurt his child. Kenjiro will not let Doujun hurt  _ him. _

Wolf is Kenjiro’s to savage or not as he sees fit. Wolf is not for Doujin’s knife, anymore.

He is for Kenjiro’s teeth.

“Get out,” Kenjiro growls. 

Doujun looks surprised, but only for a moment. He bows low and leaves the room without another word. Only when the sounds of his footsteps fade does Wolf realize he is shaking. 

Kenjiro turns and lifts Wolf’s chin, searching his face.

“A different doctor, then,” he says. Wolf doesn’t say anything.

Wolf feels wild, like there is something in him waiting to catch fire. He crawls into Kenjiro’s bed and pulls the blankets over his head.

Hates that he feels safe there in the dark, surrounded by Kenjiro’s scent. Hates Kenjiro.

Hates himself.

-

An hour or so later another doctor comes, this one without Kenjiro in tow. Wolf can scent that she is an omega, even before he pulls the blankets down off his face. She is kneeling a short distance away from the futon, hands clasped in her lap. Wolf can feel the power in her, in spite of how meek she might appear. 

Wolf knows a threat when he sees one, but she doesn’t feel like a threat to _ him _ .

“My name is Emma. I am usually charged with taking care of Lord Isshin, but I have been trying to convince Lord Kenjiro to let me see you, even before he thought you were with child. I know he can be…” She trails off as though she doesn’t know what to say.

As though she does know what to say, but cannot say it.

“Kenjiro isn’t an easy person to spend time with. I have worried about you. Master Doujun will not come again. Kenjiro was thoughtless to bring him in the first place. If you would allow me to examine you, Lord Wolf, I would be grateful.”

Her hands are warm, and her voice is gentle, and it is easy, somehow, to tell her everything. That he spent decades drinking the shinobi tea, and what ingredients he used to make it. That the heat he spent with Kenjiro was his first. The symptoms he has exhibited since then. She frowns at the bruises on his hips and throat, something sharp in her eyes that fades when she looks at Wolf’s face again. All is well, she assures him. The nausea should fade in time. Soon he will start showing in earnest, and feel the baby moving. 

She will come back, she promises. Once a week, to make sure nothing is amiss. She leaves some herbs for tea to help with the morning sickness and gets to her feet.

Then she bows low and whispers, so soft it is hard to hear.

“I will tell Lord Kuro you are as well as can be expected. If there is anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

She’s gone without another word, leaving Wolf staring at his hand on his stomach. When Kenjiro returns later it is with food in hand, bland rice and a bowl of broth. He kneels down next to Wolf and lifts his chin again, brows furrowed as he searches his face.

“What did Doujun do to you?” Kenjiro asks. 

Wolf lets his eyes flit away. He doesn’t ever speak to Kenjiro. He tells Kenjiro he loves him when prompted. When Kenjiro is busy pulling Wolf to pieces, he makes noise; he whines, and sobs, and hisses, but there are no words between them. It feels wrong to find them now, but Kenjiro asked him a question, and it will be worse to leave it unanswered.

“It would be easier to ask what he did not do,” Wolf says softly, refusing to look at him.

Kenjiro squeezes his jaw until he meets his gaze again.

“Tell me, pet,” he says, lightning shimmering over his knuckles. 

Wolf closes his eyes.

“He cut me open to watch my heart beat. Skinned me alive. He-” Wolf chokes, and swallows. “I spent days at a time dying on his table and praying I would not wake again.” 

Death is a mercy that Ashina will not grant him. 

Lightning cracks outside. Wolf opens his eyes, and Kenjiro is a thousand miles away. When he comes back into himself it is terrifying, but Wolf is not afraid.

The terror is not for him. Kenjiro lays his palm on Wolf’s belly, rubbing it in slow circles as he leans in to kiss Wolf’s cheek.

“I will be back.”

It is hours before Kenjiro returns. Wolf is in bed, eyes shining in the dark. There is blood on Kenjiro’s hands. 

There is blood  _ all over  _ Kenjiro. Matted in his hair, smeared across his face. Viscera under his fingernails. Gore soaked into his clothes. He lays down behind Wolf and wraps his arms around him, squeezing his stomach possessively and leaving streaks of red behind.

“Doujun will not come again.” Kenjiro noses into his hair. “I will announce our official marriage tomorrow. Let everyone know you are carrying my child.”

Something ancient inside Wolf is howling with triumph. Wolf does not listen.

Wolf does not sleep.

-

The sickness vanishes all at once to leave Wolf ravenous. Kenjiro is delighted to feed him again, coaxing Wolf to eat heavy portions of meat and rice, then tempting him with more sweets. The curve of his belly grows more pronounced with each day, until there is no mistaking Wolf for what he is; the mother of the heir of Ashina. Kenjiro’s wife.

Kenjiro’s  _ mate.  _

Kenjiro tells him how beautiful he looks, touching Wolf’s stomach reverently, dragging his mouth over it.

_ You’re gorgeous like this, wife. Round with my child.  _

Kenjiro holds his belly while he fucks him from behind. Runs his palms over it as he eats Wolf’s cunt. 

_ The first of many, little pet. As soon as our baby is here, I will put another one into you. Ashina will be overrun with our children. _

Wolf shudders at the words. Kenjiro takes it for pleasure.

Wolf hates that he isn’t entirely wrong.

-

Wolf wakes up with Kenjiro eating his cunt, fingers pressed deep as he croons.

“You are always so wet for me now,” Kenjiro says, palm sliding over the curve of Wolf’s belly. “Pregnancy suits you, wife.”

Wolf arches in the futon and sinks his fingers into Kenjiro’s hair. It feels so good when Kenjiro touches him, now. His whole body lights up at the press of Kenjiro’s tongue, at the stretch of Kenjiro’s knot. The bigger he gets, the more he craves Kenjiro. 

He doesn’t hate him any less, but he needs him so much more. The omega in Wolf doesn’t know anything of Wolf’s shame, Wolf’s fury, Wolf’s agony. It only knows Wolf’s hunger, and Wolf’s instincts, and yes, please,  _ more. I need you, Kenjiro. _

_ I love you, Kenjiro. _

He is two different beings trapped in one skin. He has long since stopped trying to reconcile them. His lips are redder, even without the makeup. Kenjiro stops having Asa and Furi dress him in constricting kimono at Emma’s command, worried it will hurt the baby. His hair is thicker, more lustrous. They wash him with only the finest rice bran, now, and rub camellia oil into his hair, and lotion into his skin.

Wolf’s scent changes. It is so powerful, it is like a presence in the room with him. Kenjiro is even more voracious. Wolf hadn’t known it was possible, but as his own need rises, Kenjiro’s rises in kind. There are not enough hours in the day to sate his hunger for Wolf, but Kenjiro tries.

Tries, and tries, and tries.

-

Winter gives way to spring. Wolf is so big it is getting difficult to move around. He can no longer climb into the window to look outside, or fit in most of the clothes Kenjiro originally brought him. The baby moves within him, now. It is so strange to feel it shifting in his body, kicking at his ribs so hard it hurts. His back aches. It is impossible to get comfortable.

There is no room in him, anymore. He no longer sleeps in the corner when Kenjiro is gone. He will take all the comfort he can get, wherever he can get it.

Wolf lays his palm over his stomach and waits. After a few moments there is a gentle thud, his child moving to kick against his touch. His child.

_ His  _ child. At first Wolf only thought of them as Kenjiro’s. He isn’t sure when that changed, or why, but he lays his hand on his belly and feels a wave of protectiveness wash over him. They will come into the world, and something will belong to him again. There is fear like Wolf has never felt before; like he feels for Kuro, but a thousandfold. Wolf would die for Kuro.  _ Has  _ died for Kuro.

Wolf would do  _ anything  _ for the child growing inside him.

Kenjiro loves to feel the baby moving. Loves to put his mouth on the curve of Wolf’s belly and talk to them. Make promises about how they will rule Ashina. How he will lay it all at their feet. It is true, Wolf knows.

Kenjiro will rip apart the whole world to keep safe the things he thinks of as his own, even if it destroys them.

He has Wolf spread out on their bed one evening, teeth in his throat and fingers in his cunt, petting Wolf’s stomach like it is an animal that needs soothing.

“It will not be long now,” Kenjiro says. 

Emma says the same thing, whenever she comes to see him. An autumn baby, she says. The leaves will turn, and Wolf with them.

“You are far enough along that Emma says I need to be careful with you,” he says, twisting his fingers in Wolf and nuzzling at his throat. “She says that I could hurt the baby if I am too rough.”

Kenjiro’s fingers are drenched with slick when he pulls them out of Wolf and slides them lower, rubbing insistent circles behind Wolf’s cunt. Wolf’s eyes go wide as Kenjiro presses into him slowly. Kenjiro has fucked Wolf countless times, but never like this. The stretch is nothing like the way his cunt takes Kenjiro. Wolf is tighter here. He has to breathe deep and even, force himself to relax. His slick makes the slide easier, but it is still a foreign thing. Wolf’s breath hitches as Kenjiro works him open.

“From now on, I will take you like this. I cannot risk hurting them.” Kenjiro slips another finger in, grinning against Wolf’s jaw. “Or my wife.”

He takes his time making sure Wolf is ready, wiping up more slick to get him wet. Wolf’s instincts cannot tell the difference between Kenjiro fucking his cunt and Kenjiro taking him from behind; he’s dripping between his thighs, breathing hard and trembling. It shouldn’t feel good, but Wolf is already shaking by the time Kenjiro pushes into him.

He comes before Kenjiro is even fully seated, whimpering and clutching at Kenjiro’s skin.

“You love this, too,” Kenjiro says, like he is in awe. Wolf shuts his eyes tight and nods.

He wants so many things he cannot have. He will not deny himself this.

“Oh, little wife. You’re perfect. I love you.”

“I love you too, Kenjiro,” Wolf breathes, like a prayer that has become meaningless.

Kenjiro fucks him until there are tears pouring down Wolf’s face, four of Kenjiro’s fingers shoved into his cunt, bent like he is trying to make up for the lack of a knot there. His body is not made to milk Kenjiro like this, but it tries, muscles spasming and clenching around him. When he knots Wolf it hurts, but not as much as he expects.

Wolf thinks he would be forlorn if Kenjiro had pulled out instead of staying buried there, come pulsing warm into him in bursts. The omega in him would not understand being denied.

Kenjiro is something Wolf needs, whether he likes it or not.

-

The Ministry is restless. They don’t attack outright, not with Isshin still breathing. 

Isshin comes to see Wolf sometimes, tagging along with Emma, making polite conversation. He promises to share sake with Wolf when he is able; Wolf doesn’t bother telling him that won’t be for a long, long while. He is pregnant, and then he will be nursing.

Then he will be pregnant again with another of Kenjiro’s heirs; over and over, as he has been assured so often. 

Ashina, running over with their young.

Still, Isshin is gregarious and friendly and manages to insult Kenjiro with every other word out of his mouth. Wolf doesn’t laugh— Wolf doesn’t dare, but he does smile sometimes and look away. 

Isshin waits until Emma is gone and apologizes to Wolf for the way he’s been treated. By Doujun.

By Kenjiro.

_ My grandson is wild, and I failed to rein him in as he should have been when he was young. Losing Tomoe broke him. He’s never been the same, and I didn’t know what to do with him, but I should have done something. If I’d realized what Genichiro was doing with you… _

Wolf doesn’t know what Isshin would have done because he trails off and falls and silent.

Isshin doesn’t know, either. Wolf can see it in his eyes.

His world is bigger now, if not by much. There is Kenjiro. Asa and Furi helping him dress and bathe when Kenjiro is busy, though there is no more makeup or elaborate clothing and jewelry. There is Emma, and Isshin, and the sky outside Wolf’s window just out of reach.

The Ministry doesn’t attack, but they test Ashina’s defenses. Push at her edges and see how she responds. Kenjiro is with Wolf often, but not always. Sometimes he must meet with his brother and grandfather and argue about how best to protect their people.

Sometimes he leaves in the morning, and does not come back until well past nightfall. Wolf spends his time reading— books that Emma and Isshin brought him, at first, until Kenjiro realizes and starts bringing them himself. It is a relief to have the time alone, even if his instincts are unsettled by Kenjiro’s absence. He has learned to turn that part of him off if he tries hard enough.

It is still there, yearning for things that make him feel pathetic, but when there is no one else around Wolf can pretend he is still human for a while.

It’s easier to doze in their bed now that Wolf is constantly exhausted. The baby keeps him up at night when Kenjiro is sleeping, and sleeps when Kenjiro will not let him rest. He is sore all over, always— his back, his hips, his ribs. 

Most recently, his chest. It is swollen now, nipples oversensitive. Kenjiro loves to squeeze him there. It makes Wolf shudder, but relieves some of the ache. 

He wakes tangled in their blankets, the sun long since set, lamps throwing flickering light around the room. His book is forgotten on the floor beside him where he dropped it when he fell asleep. Kenjiro is still gone. 

Wolf’s body feels his absence and wishes he was there. It is hard to sleep through the nights alone. He is so used to Kenjiro’s warmth. Wolf flexes his thighs, rubbing his palm over his stomach where the baby is twisting in place. They settle finally, and Wolf drags his hand up and tugs his robes open, massaging at one side of his chest. Wolf digs his fingers into it to rub away the soreness, thumb dragging across his nipple.

There is a slickness that was not there before, damp under his palm. Wolf glances down, rubbing his nipple between his fingers and giving it a gentle tug. Pearly white drops bead up on the surface, dripping down his chest. His milk has come in finally. The fullness makes sense; soon there will be a child locked onto them, draining him every few hours. Until then, he will have to endure it.

Except that he will not, he realizes, as Kenjiro appears in the room, his eyes locked on Wolf’s fingers where he is leaking between them.

_ “Oh,  _ wife,” Kenjiro breathes, crossing the space between them in a handful of steps. He falls to his knees and shoves Wolf’s fingers away to take a rough handful of his chest, squeezing roughly until milk pours from his nipple. “I have been waiting for ages to taste you.”

Kenjiro latches onto Wolf, sucking a nipple deep into his mouth and pulling. The relief is instantaneous, pressure easing as Kenjiro swallows around a croon, wrapping Wolf up in his arms so tightly it hurts. Wolf feels slick dripping between his thighs, Kenjiro’s mouth on his chest like a rope that is drawn tight inside him, tugging on all the places Kenjiro always sets alight. They groan in unison, Wolf tangling his fingers in Kenjiro’s hair. As though he needs to hold him close.

As though he is afraid Kenjiro will stop.

Any fear on his part is needless. Kenjiro is more relaxed than Wolf has ever felt him, easing them both down into the blankets and closing his eyes. He nurses like he is starved for it, pulling mouthful after mouthful and swallowing it contentedly. After a while he shifts to the other side of Wolf’s chest, fingers trailing down Wolf’s body to slip between his thighs. Wolf throws his knees wide, whining as he feels the sting of Kenjiro’s teeth. 

He switches back and forth, biting at Wolf’s nipples and draining him dry. Wolf comes once, twice— he loses track as Kenjiro sucks and growls and fingers him open. Kenjiro takes him when there is nothing left to drink, fucking into him as he nurses absently at Wolf’s empty chest.

When Kenjiro nuzzles into his side and falls asleep, Wolf finds himself smiling.

It falls off his face when he realizes. He stares out the window. He’s playing with Kenjiro’s hair.

Wolf closes his eyes.

-

The next day Kenjiro finds Wolf sitting under the window in the patch of sun it throws onto the floor. He must look as lost as he feels.

“You haven’t been sitting on the roof lately,” Kenjiro says, frowning down at Wolf from overhead.

“I cannot climb into the window now,” Wolf replies without looking at him. “I have not been outside in weeks.”

He had not realized just how much the illusion of freedom kept him from losing himself until he could not cling to it anymore. Kenjiro’s frown intensifies as he glances from Wolf to the window and back again.

“Oh precious. You should have told me.”

There is no warning before Kenjiro scoops Wolf up into his arms, tugging his robes into place and carrying him out into the hall. There are guards as always, more of them with each week as he gets closer to delivering. They don’t bat an eye as Kenjiro whisks Wolf down the stairs and through the castle.

Outside the sun is shining so brightly that it hurts Wolf’s eyes. He squints where he is pressed into Kenjiro’s chest as he carries him into an inner courtyard. There are benches scattered throughout it, greenery everywhere, a large koi pond sprawling over half the garden. When they reach one of the low wooden benches he sets Wolf down, brushing his hair back from his face without meeting his eyes.

“You can ask me for anything, pet,” Kenjiro says, smiling. It is the truth.

It is a lie.

Wolf can ask for anything, as long as he does not ask to go. It is warm, and the wind is soft.

Genichiro is watching from a nearby window. Wolf doesn’t look at him.

Wolf basks in the sun.

-

It happens in the night, as with everything that would be better left to daylight. Wolf has been cramping intensely for days. False labor, Emma calls it. 

There is nothing false about the pain. 

Then he wakes with a sharp lance of heat in his gut, and what feels like a belt snapping inside him.

There is nothing false about the rush of fluid between his legs. Wolf sits up in bed, Kenjiro curling around him without waking. A long stretch of quiet passes, Wolf laying a palm over his belly as though this is something he can soothe away. A burst of pain spreads through his abdomen as his muscles contract viciously. Wolf grits his teeth through it until it passes. He doesn’t plan on waking Kenjiro.

His arm moves of its own volition, shaking Kenjiro’s shoulder before he has a chance to stop himself. Wolf wants his alpha, even if he wishes he did not.

“Kenjiro.” Kenjiro mumbles and presses closer to Wolf, nosing along his stomach contentedly. “Kenjiro,” Wolf says again, louder. 

Sleepy eyes blink up at him, but the drowsiness only lingers for a moment before he can scent Wolf’s anxiety thick in the air. He knows what is happening before Wolf opens his mouth, laying a hand on Wolf’s belly as his face clouds with concern. It is genuine. Wolf knows it is not only for their child.

He is worried about Wolf. Cares about Wolf. 

Wolf doesn’t know if Kenjiro is capable of love, but whatever he can feel that isn’t fury, he feels it for Wolf.

“Emma,” Wolf says when Kenjiro just stares at him unblinking.

Kenjiro surges to his feet and runs into the hall, sending guards to fetch Emma and her assistants. He comes back in an instant, kneeling down next to Wolf and taking his hand.

“I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

It is a lie, even if Kenjiro doesn’t know it. Emma comes with her nurses, Asa and Furi trailing after them, and it is less than an hour before she tires of Kenjiro’s pacing and looming and kicks him out of the room. Wolf can hear Isshin and Genichiro in the hall, speaking softly to Kenjiro, who is not speaking softly at all. 

Things go slowly, or it feels that way to Wolf.

He has died less painfully than this; the contractions increase until he cannot take in air. At first he tries to be stoic, but as the hours drag by he cannot pretend he isn’t hurting immensely. He does his best not to scream.

His best is not enough. Sweat pours off his body as he holds Asa’s hand. Furi takes away blood stained blankets and replaces them with new ones, again and again. They give him sips of water, and wipe his face with cool rags. Emma is a rock, voice calming as it has always been, hands so fucking gentle when Wolf has known such viciousness inside these walls. 

It feels like he will split open. It feels like he  _ has  _ split open.

When he cannot take anymore, Emma lets Kenjiro return. 

“Just one more push, Wolf,” she says, Kenjiro wide eyed and frantic beside him. He tries to hold Wolf’s hand.

Wolf slaps Kenjiro’s arm away. He cannot think of him.

He cannot think of anything. There is only agony, and then a sense of emptiness that should be a relief, but is not. Wolf feels like he has lost something precious that he cannot get back.

Then there is a cry, and Wolf’s heart twists in his chest. He cannot see anything but Emma’s arms moving, wiping at a writhing bundle, brows drawn with something that looks like rage. She looks at Kenjiro like a snake about to strike him.

She hands Wolf his daughter, still covered in streaks of blood and waxy fluid. He takes her, and there is no air in his lungs. She is the whole world; there is nothing else. She has a shock of short, dark hair matted to her head, and she is so small it makes his chest hurt like he’s taken a sword. 

She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He did not know there was room in him for everything he feels. Did not know he could love someone like this; furiously. 

Savagely.

She is perfect. She is whole.

Wolf freezes. Wolf shakes.

She has scars running down the left side of her face in the shape of bolts of lightning. They twist over her collar bones. Her arms, her chest, her legs. They are everywhere, white and faded like they’ve had time to heal. Kenjiro reaches for her, adoration written into every inch of him. He is in love, the way Wolf is in love. He wants to take her from him.

Wolf thinks of laying prone under Kenjiro’s hands with lightning arcing through him.

_ I love you, Kenjiro, I love you.  _

All this time he’s carried her in his womb bearing Kenjiro’s violence; before Wolf even held her in his arms and already Kenjiro had done this to her. He pulls her up against his chest and looks at Kenjiro with a hatred he has never experienced. It feels wrong, suddenly, that there is not blood in his teeth.

Wrong that Kenjiro isn’t bleeding at his feet.

_ “You,”  _ Wolf hisses, teeth bared as he snarls. “You  _ don’t touch her.”  _ He does not care about Kenjiro’s wrath. 

Wrath cannot touch him. He is made of it. 

There is an expression on Kenjiro’s face that is unfathomable, caught somewhere between fear and uncertainty. As though, for the first time, Wolf is someone dangerous. Kenjiro looks down at her then, and his eyes widen. Uncertainty shifts to what can only be grief. Wolf does not have space in himself to bear it. Kenjiro’s jaw shakes, hand still extended, fingers trembling.

Wolf is quaking all over, as though he’s been out in the cold long enough to be dying from it. Asa brings a blanket and wraps it around him, shooting a hard look at Kenjiro. Furi stands nearby, face drawn in unhappiness. Emma is watching Wolf, waiting.

“Precious,” Kenjiro says, reaching for Wolf this time. “I’m-”

Wolf growls with his teeth bared, feral and unafraid.

_ “No.  _ Get out of here. Get out of  _ my sight.  _ I cannot stand to look at you.”

There is not a trace of anger in Kenjiro, no mask to pull on to cover himself. Kenjiro looks weak.

Kenjiro looks broken.

“Out,” Emma says, voice brooking no argument. She glances towards one of her assistants.

Her assistants have swords. 

It doesn’t come to blows, but Emma came prepared for them. Wolf loves her more than he can put into words. Kenjiro takes a stumbling step backwards and stills, caught up like an animal that doesn’t know where to run.

“Lord Isshin,” Emma calls, eyes still locked on Kenjiro. Isshin comes into the room, Genichiro lingering behind him in the hallway. “Remove Kenjiro. Give us the room.”

Isshin glances around, from Wolf’s daughter, to Wolf, to Kenjiro. To Emma, who is a breath away from bloodshed. He takes Kenjiro by the arm and pulls; Kenjiro goes so easily.

Wolf is left with his daughter nuzzling into his chest and the soft voices of omegas. It is like cool water on a fever to be surrounded by them now. He pulls the baby to his chest and lets her latch onto him, her tiny fists kneading angrily at the skin until she finally stills. 

“She is beautiful,” Emma says. Wolf nods. Lets out a shuddering sob.

She is beautiful. 

Nothing has ever been more true.

-

They move Wolf into a clean bed, piled high with blankets that still smell like Kenjiro. It soothes Wolf when he doesn’t want to be soothed by it. He drinks water and lets the baby nurse— he does not know what to call her. Wolf assumed Kenjiro would name her, but now that feels unforgivable. 

He has given her enough already. More than enough.

He is leaning against a wall surrounded by pillows, Asa and Furi nearby in case he needs something. Mostly Wolf needs to sleep, but it feels out of reach.

Emma comes into the room and bows, eyes on the floor.

“Lord Isshin and Lord Genichiro would like to come and see her, if that is alright with you.”

Wolf doesn’t have the energy to refuse so he nods, not bothering to cover himself. She is sleeping soundly, still latched onto his chest, and he is not going to disturb her. Emma bows again and opens the door, allowing Isshin and Genichiro to creep quietly into the room.

They approach Wolf slowly, like they are wary of his reaction. Isshin kneels on one side of him, Genichiro on the other, both of them looking down at the baby in Wolf’s arms in awe. Emma must have told them what to expect, because they don’t balk at the scars. Isshin smiles, running a finger down her cheek.

The look on Genichiro’s face is just as unfathomable as Kenjiro’s had been. He stares at her like he’s seeing the sun for the first time, eyes wide and wet. His lips quiver, then steady. He’s breathing hard, like he cannot get enough air.

“Do you have a name for her yet?” Isshin asks. Wolf shakes his head, tearing his eyes away from Genichiro to look at Isshin instead. “You could call her Tomoe, if it pleases you,” Isshin says softly, tracing another of the scars on her skin. “Touched by the lightning, so to speak.” Genichiro flinches but doesn’t look upset.

“Tomoe,” Wolf says. She shifts in his arms, mouth finally relaxing. She lets go of his nipple, face still tucked against Wolf, a drop of milk escaping from her pink lips. Her hands are loose now, laying slack against Wolf’s skin. “Tomoe,” he says again. Nods.

Isshin nods back, looking satisfied.

“I’m having rooms prepared for you. Rooms of your own. You’ll have your own guards, and your servants will have their own quarters nearby to help with her. Anything you need, just ask. You are family now. Mine as much as Kenjiro and this one here.” 

Isshin does not apologize again, as he has so many times before, and Wolf is grateful.

Genichiro still looks lost.

“Can I hold her,” Genichiro whispers, voice so soft Wolf barely hears. 

He waits for instincts to rile, but they do not. Wolf hasn’t killed Genichiro in his dreams in ages. Where there was hatred, now there is merely weariness. He lifts Tomoe gently from his chest and wraps her blanket around her, passing her over into Genichiro’s arms.

Genichiro inhales raggedly, staring like she is some fragile thing that might shatter in his hands. His breath hitches like he wants to sob, but he does not. He looks so much like Kenjiro. It could be Genichiro’s child in his arms.

That is how he is looking at her. Wolf can see that unabashed adoration in Genichiro that he feels in himself; as though she is his whole world, and nothing will ever be the same.

“She’s so small,” Genichiro says.

Then he’s lifting her up to his face and breathing her into his lungs. He shudders all over like he’s taken a blow, rubbing his face against hers. Genichiro drags his forehead across hers, nuzzling into her chest and belly. It takes a moment for Wolf to realize he’s scent marking her.

It should be scandalous— an alpha scent marks their young, and no one else, but it doesn’t feel wrong. Genichiro smells just like his brother, after all. It is only right that Tomoe bear his scent. Isshin laughs, shoving at Genichiro’s shoulder playfully.

“I know you need an heir, Genichiro, but that doesn’t mean you should take this one.”

Genichiro doesn’t even bother looking at him. He’s still marking Tomoe, still taking in her scent. She starts to wiggle in his arms, scrunching up her face and letting out a wail at being disturbed. Wolf reaches out to take her back, even if Genichiro looks reluctant to give her over. He nestles her against his chest again, and she pulls him into her mouth and settles instantly.

“We’ll let you get some rest. Your quarters will be ready tomorrow.”

Isshin shepherds Genichiro out like he is a dog who is loath to leave his master, tugging on his arm and all but shoving him out the door.

Wolf leans back against the wall. His arm aches. It is hard to hold her with only one. It will only get harder as she grows. The things Genichiro has taken from him pale now in the face of Kenjiro’s transgressions. He is somewhere in the castle, lingering like poison that cannot be drawn out. 

Tomoe is quiet, only moving to nuzzle deeper into him. Wolf cries soundlessly until sleep takes him. 

When he wakes she is still there, beautiful as ever, and he cries again.

-

His new quarters are larger than Kenjiro’s and much more lavish. There are rooms leading off of his own; for Tomoe when she is older.

For more children, if he has them. When he has them, is what Wolf thinks, but then he thinks of Kenjiro touching him again and seethes.

At first.

Wolf and Tomoe do nothing but sleep and eat for days. He drifts off with her tucked against his chest, waking again when Asa nudges him,  _ she is hungry again my lord.  _ Kenjiro comes by and looms in the doorway, hands fisted at his sides. Wolf doesn’t mean to stand, but he does. Doesn’t mean to hand Tomoe to Furi, but he does.

Doesn’t mean to reach for the iron poker in the irori, but he does. It sits in his palm like an old friend. Kenjiro nods like it is exactly what he expects, and turns and leaves the room. 

Wolf screams and flings the poker at the wall.

Wolf falls to the ground and puts his face into his hands. Cries, and cries, and cries. Then Tomoe is there crying too, and he tries to soothe her as he chokes on his breaths. He does not deserve her.

The world does not deserve her.

And yet.

-

The days drag on endlessly. His body heals himself; slowly, slowly. It has never been broken in this way. It will take time. Wolf rubs at his stomach, lonely at the emptiness even with Tomoe in his arms. It will pass, Emma says.

All things do, he finds.

She closes her little hands around his fingers. Wraps them around his hair and pulls. He closes his palm around her tiny feet one after the other. He breathes in the scent of her, Genichiro still lingering even after so much time. 

He thinks of Kenjiro, who hasn’t held her. Kenjiro, who hasn’t touched her.

Wolf misses him. Wishes he was close.

Wishes he could forgive him, but he has not asked, and so Wolf cannot. They have been through so much together; Kenjiro is an animal. A monster.

Wolf’s monster, now. He does not lie awake at night. Tomoe takes so much of him, and Wolf would give it all and more gladly, but he has never been so tired.

He is surprised he wakes when Kenjiro comes again, smelling of sake, stumbling into Wolf’s rooms a few hours before dawn. Wolf watches him slip closer, trying and failing to be silent. Kenjiro collapses to his knees next to their bed, reaching out to Tomoe with a shaking hand. His face is wet with tears. His scent is full of despair. Kenjiro smells like death.

Like mourning.

“I’m so sorry, my love,” he whispers. “I am such a fool.”

Wolf doesn’t know who he is talking to; Tomoe, or him, or both. Kenjiro traces the scars on her face, leaning down to press his lips there. 

He breathes her in, and shakes.

He moves to stand and Wolf reaches out to grab his wrist, eyes shining in the dark.

“Stay.”

Wolf does not want him to go. 

He will not say he loves him again, but he does not want to be alone. Kenjiro pulls in a shuddering breath, face twisting up as he tucks it against Wolf’s chest.

“I miss you,” Kenjiro says, drawing Tomoe closer to them both.

Wolf’s whole world is there. Tomoe.

Kenjiro.

“You need not anymore. I am here.”

There is no urge to run. He cannot leave this behind. Finally, Wolf thinks. They fall back to sleep together. 

It is broken, but it is home.


	4. Brood

GENICHIRO

-

Genichiro is in shambles.

It’s nothing he doesn’t deserve for all the things he’s done— to Wolf.

To himself.

Gods, he is a fool.

Genichiro has been a fool as long as he could remember. Since Isshin found him and Kenjiro lost in the forests of Ashina, covered in filth and gaunt from living on the run. Since their home had been razed to the ground, their parents along with it.

It had been months before his grandfather found them and brought them home, and in that time, all Genichiro had was his brother. The two of them against the world; then, and always. They’d shivered through the winter, starving and hopeless but never alone. They have the kind of kinship that was grown in the womb as they clung to one another. That stares back at Genichiro with the same eyes. Touches Genichiro with the same hands.

A love forged in blood, and then in agony.

No one else could understand.

Isshin brought them home but the tragedy lingered like a scar even before Kenjiro bore his own. Before the lightning, and Tomoe, and the way Ashina always seemed to ask so much of her warriors.

She wanted everything, and they gave it to her, and then some. Genichiro didn’t mind.

He had his brother. It was all he needed. 

They trained with Tomoe together, ate together, bathed together. For the longest time Genichiro could only breathe easy if Kenjiro was close enough to touch. There is no one else on earth that understands Genichiro like Kenjiro does. Genichiro doesn’t even have to speak.

Kenjiro just knows.

They slept together long after they should have been given separate rooms, refusing to be parted. Kenjiro liked to tangle his fingers in Genichiro’s hair. They pressed in close, sharing heat, breathing each other’s air. Genichiro drifted off with Kenjiro’s face tucked into his throat, Kenjiro’s warm skin on his own. Kenjiro’s breath. Kenjiro’s scent, so like his own it is hard to tell them apart.

They were both alphas; they shouldn’t have drawn such comfort from one another after presenting, but their dynamics have never mattered. Genichiro was only at peace with Kenjiro wrapped around him, the rest of the castle sleeping.

They lay curled together in the dark, hidden under blankets, Kenjiro’s hands in his clothes. Explored one another, reveling in the subtle difference in their scents, feeling the ways their bodies were changing. Sharp teeth, strong scents, and knots that swelled up in one another’s hands without fail.

The shame of it came later. At first, there was only awareness; of everything he wanted.

That he only wanted it from  _ Kenjiro.  _

Genichiro wasn’t good with words, but even if he had been, there was no way to voice the things they’d been through together. No one else could put their hands on Genichiro and feel him the way Kenjiro did. All of Ashina could burn, and there would still be this; Kenjiro’s fingers trailing down his back. Kenjiro’s blood beating through his veins. 

They had always been together, and it was so easy to fall into him like that, too. They already knew every inch of each other. It was just a matter of learning more; the sounds Kenjiro made. How Genichiro fell apart. 

Genichiro should not have needed it so badly, but he did.

Genichiro should not have let it go on so long, but he did. 

Genichiro could not carry on that way.

Genichiro could not stop.

They pulled lightning down together, Kenjiro too quickly, until he would always bear the mark. They drank the waters together, clinging to each other as Ashina ran through them like fire— earth in their mouths. Power, power, power.

There was no power like it; lightning, and Ashina, and his brother beside him.

They lost Tomoe together. If Kenjiro had ever loved someone besides Genichiro, besides Isshin, it was her. He reached for Genichiro, and Genichiro reached back. Kenjiro was still shattered, but the pieces were less sharp.

Then the shame rolled in like a storm. Genichiro ruined things, as he always did. The weight of Ashina was already so much to bear without dragging his brother down like a stone.

When he pushed Kenjiro away and did not let him in again, Genichiro stoked the violence in him from a spark to a flame. He left Kenjiro’s bed and did not come back, but it did not stay empty. Kenjiro slept with dozens of omegas, and hurt them all.

Hurt them so he could hurt Genichiro, even from so far away. 

_ I will have you and keep you, or I will keep no one,  _ Kenjiro said, in bruised throats and bloody noses.

_ There is no one else who can stand beside me,  _ Kenjiro said, in tear-streaked faces and hollow eyes.  _ No one else who can stand  _ against  _ me.  _ He never spoke it in words. They didn’t need them.

Kenjiro spoke in violence, and Genichiro understood. He kept expecting Kenjiro to settle again but without Tomoe to rein him in or Genichiro to pull him closer, there was nothing but fury. Kenjiro held onto anger like Genichiro held onto Ashina. 

With everything he had. With everything he was.

When Genichiro saw Wolf bleeding in the silvergrass field and refusing to die, he could not look away. It was like looking in a mirror. 

Like looking at his brother.

Wolf holding on, refusing to let go. They needed the dragon’s heritage, it was true, but that wasn’t what caught Genichiro like a spider in a web. It was Wolf, even then.

He was so much like Kenjiro.

Finding out he was an omega was like uncovering gold in the soil he was tilling. Not just earth to be sown, and worked, but something to reap when it had grown tall enough. 

Something precious, here and now. 

Something for Kenjiro. A place to pour out his violence.

Someone to reach for besides Genichiro. It stung even as Genichiro thought it, but there was nothing else he could do. He’d thrown Wolf to Kenjiro and expected almost nothing; perhaps Kuro would give them the dragon’s heritage, but perhaps he would not.

Perhaps Wolf would die. Perhaps he would not. 

If nothing else, it would settle Kenjiro’s worse instincts for a while. He left Wolf in Kenjiro’s quarters and thought,  _ that is the last I will see of him. _ Genichiro was wrong.

He is always wrong.

Wolf kept holding on, refusing to let death take him. Whether he would not, or he could not, Genichiro didn’t know. Kenjiro was suddenly an entirely different person, grinning and smug where he had always been on the edge of catching fire. Wolf’s scent clung to him like a second skin, sakura and sweetness and want. Genichiro wasn’t jealous of Kenjiro.

Genichiro was jealous of Wolf. 

At first.

He knew Wolf was pregnant before Kenjiro announced it; Wolf’s scent changed, shifting into something drugging. It was hard not to press his face into Kenjiro’s throat and breathe in deep.

Hard not to grab Kenjiro’s hand by the wrist and pull his fingers into his mouth.

Wolf smelled  _ divine. _

Kenjiro neglected his duties. Genichiro was furious at first, impatient enough to storm into Kenjiro’s room and demand his presence.

Impatient enough not to notice the scents pouring under the door before he threw it open to find Wolf on his knees, Kenjiro’s knot in his mouth, robes hanging off his shoulder and belly swelling ever so slightly between his hips. Genichiro froze and could not look away.

Genichiro laid in his quarters at night with a fist around his knot, choking around Kenjiro’s name. It is the first time he found them together, but not the last. Genichiro followed them to the baths, watching from the darkness. Lingered by Kenjiro’s door, listening to the sounds they made together. Wolf is beautiful in Kenjiro’s arms.

Kenjiro is beautiful, always. It is not like looking into a mirror anymore. Kenjiro is so much more than Genichiro.

He held onto the thought that Wolf was a means to an end; Wolf would bear Kenjiro's children, and when Kenjiro was finished, he would throw Wolf away.

Genichiro was wrong.

Genichiro was always wrong. He knew Wolf was more than Kenjiro’s plaything the night he went into the medical suite and tore Doujun’s assistants apart with his hands. 

With his teeth.

Genichiro heard screaming; Kenjiro screaming.

Everyone else screaming back at him. Genichiro found him in the medical suite covered in gore and wreathed in lightning, Doujun cowering in the corner trying to shield himself with his arms. There were body parts strewn around the room, everything painted in red. Blood dripped from Kenjiro’s fingers.

Dripped from Kenjiro’s knife.

Genichiro grabbed him by the arm to pull him back and Kenjiro wheeled on him, teeth bared and eyes wild.

_ Do you know what he did to  _ my  _ omega? He  _ cut him open,  _ Genichiro! He skinned him alive! He- _

Kenjiro choked on a sob.

Kenjiro was shaking.

_ If he so much as looks at my mate again, I will tear him apart. If he breathes the same air. If he  _ thinks  _ of my omega, I will pluck out his heart and feed it to the dogs. _

Genichiro believed him. 

Kenjiro left the room with blood dripping from his fingers, covered in pieces of Doujun’s assistants, and Genichiro felt lost. Alone, like he had never been alone. Kenjiro had someone.

Kenjiro had a  _ mate;  _ Wolf was never leaving Ashina.

Wolf was  _ family  _ now.

-

It was an eternity before Wolf went into labor.

It was no time at all. There was a storm, and the castle was in an uproar. Genichiro and Isshin waited outside Kenjiro’s rooms; alone at first, but then with Kenjiro after Emma kicked him out. They listened to soft voices through the wall, breathed in the scent of Wolf’s anxiety as he wailed and breathed and pushed. As the time drew near, Kenjiro was let back in again. For a moment.

Then he was dragged out by Isshin, pale as a ghost and trembling all over.

_ What have I done,  _ he said, staring at his hands.  _ Everything they say is true. _

_ I am just a monster. _

Genichiro pulled him close for the first time in a long time. Genichiro breathed him in, and ran long fingers through his hair.

_ If you are, then I am,  _ Genichiro said. Kenjiro just shook his head.

_ Go and see her, Genichiro. I cannot. I don’t deserve- please, I need to know if she’s okay. Tell me she’s okay.  _

Genichiro had gone into Kenjiro’s room, and the whole world ceased to exist. She was so small. She was so beautiful.

She was perfect even covered in scars, and she smelled like she belonged to  _ Genichiro,  _ like his blood was running through her veins. It wasn’t.

It was; his instincts were ancient, savage things, and they wanted to hold her close and never let her go. Genichiro was a monster, too.

Genichiro was a fool. He’d had Wolf at his feet, and given him to  _ Kenjiro. _

But for his own stupidity, this child could have been his own. Genichiro held her close. Covered her in his scent. It was scandalous, but he could not stop. Wolf was there, tired and covered in sweat, resplendent with the scent of relief. The scent of a new mother. Of a healthy, perfect child. 

He had never been more breathtaking than in that moment, wrung out and ready to collapse, chest exposed with milk still dripping down his skin.

Genichiro wanted to feed him by hand. Wanted to bring him water, and sweets, and crawl into bed with them both. The alpha in him was an animal, simple and without nuance; Wolf smelled like him. Tomoe smelled like him.

They were Genichiro’s, except that they were not. 

Giving Tomoe back to Wolf and stumbling from the room felt like rending off a piece of himself and leaving it behind. 

Genichiro had always been broken, but now he was something worse. Now he was empty.

Now he was alone.

Now he knew what it was to be whole, and had to step away.

-

Kenjiro staggered around the castle for days, drunk and falling to pieces. 

Kenjiro crawled into Genichiro’s bed, and Genichiro let him; pulled him close. Nosed through his hair.

_ I have you, Kenjiro,  _ but it was not enough. Genichiro was not enough. 

After holding Tomoe in his arms and looking at Wolf’s drowsy smile, Genichiro could not blame him. Kenjiro sobs himself to sleep, then wakes up and reaches for his sake again. Then, one night, it stops.

Then he goes to Wolf’s new quarters heavy with grief, and does not return.

-

Genichiro is glad that Wolf has started to forgive Kenjiro, but his bed is colder than before without his brother beside him. Most of the time, he does not begrudge Kenjiro his family.

Most of the time, he is a good brother. A dutiful heir. Most of the time, Genichiro is silent.

Most of the time, Genichiro wants to scream.

-

Wolf comes to eat at their table when he can manage it now, Tomoe squirming against his chest. It is hard for him to hold her with one arm, but he wrestles her into place. Kenjiro feeds him by hand, and Wolf takes it without hesitation. It is easy. Practiced.

He has been feeding Wolf from his fingers for a long, long time. It shouldn’t hurt, but it does.

Genichiro doesn’t realize what he is doing until it is already done. Kenjiro is downstairs in the baths, the whole castle quiet as it settles for the evening. 

Genichiro is standing outside Wolf’s rooms with a porcelain prosthetic in his hands, pristine white with the nails painted red, fingers splayed in a delicate curve to help him cradle Tomoe. There is an elaborate set of leather ties to wrap around Wolf’s bicep and hold it in place.

There is a little Wolf carved into the wrist, surrounded in a burst of lightning. 

He listens for a moment, waiting until he hears Wolf speaking softly to Tomoe to make sure he isn’t disturbing their sleep; it’s rare, and precious, and Genichiro won’t be the one to wake them from it. Then there is Wolf’s voice murmuring something low, and Tomoe cooing, and Genichiro taps gently at the door. 

“Come in,” Wolf calls, and Genichiro slides it open and steps inside.

He comes to see Tomoe every day, ignoring the long looks from Kenjiro he gets at first. Genichiro deserves them— he’d  _ scent marked  _ another alpha’s child, but he does not regret it. There was nothing else he could have done, and even now it is difficult to resist the impulse. He kneels next to Wolf’s bed each day, sometimes with Kenjiro lurking nearby and sometimes not. He watches Tomoe nurse, or wiggle in Wolf’s grasp.

He takes her from Wolf and cradles her against his chest, something in him unwinding when Tomoe drifts off to sleep in his arms. She clutches his fingers, pulls them into her mouth; Genichiro is in love like he has never been before.

Like he has only been once before, almost, and let shame snatch it away.

Wolf is not surprised to see him, but he does look at the bundle of silk in his arms with furrowed brows. Genichiro kneels beside the bed like always, staring at Tomoe where she is blinking up at him with wide eyes. It is hard to say what he needs to say, but he has already come here and there is no turning back now.

“I brought you something,” Genichiro bites out finally, tearing his gaze away from Tomoe to offer Wolf the prosthetic. 

Wolf holds Tomoe up in offering as well, unable to negotiate both her and the bundle Genichiro is trying to hand him. He lays the prosthetic at Wolf’s side and takes Tomoe gratefully.

Pulling her into his arms is always like taking a breath when he has been suffocating.

Genichiro leans down to kiss her, unable to quell the urge. She is everything and he cannot resist. The scent is soothing like nothing he has ever breathed.

Something in Genichiro is always uneasy until she is close. Wolf picks up the prosthetic and tugs the silk away, frowning at it for a moment before he realizes what he’s holding. A smile breaks over his face like dawn, and he looks up at Genichiro as though expecting an explanation. Genichiro cannot give him one right away.

He is caught up in the curve of Wolf’s lips; the light in his eyes, the pink in his cheeks. The drugging shock of joy in his scent. 

Genichiro wants to breath it in forever. Wants to give him the world. Already his mind is racing, trying to think of what else he can buy for Wolf that will put this look on his face again. The alpha in Genichiro thrills with the rightness of having pleased his mate. Of providing for him. Of making him happy.

Wolf is not Genichiro’s, but he is past arguing with his instincts. It is endless, and futile, and Genichiro is tired of pretending.

“It must be hard to hold her with only one arm,” Genichiro mumbles, looking down at Tomoe as his own cheeks heat. “I thought this would make things simpler.”

Tomoe’s eyes are drifting closed. She is at ease with Genichiro, like she is at ease with Kenjiro, like she is at ease with Wolf. In her eyes, Genichiro means she is safe. He hurts inside in places that he hadn’t known existed. Deeper than his heart, down into his bones.

“It will. Thank you, Genichiro.”

“Do not thank me,” Genichiro says back without looking up. “You need not.”

It was Genichiro who took Wolf’s arm from him in the first place. What he has given Wolf is a pale imitation, but it is all he can do. Even then, it is not enough. Genichiro cannot return all the things he’s taken from Wolf.

Genichiro kisses Tomoe again; even if he could go back, he would not change this. 

He would be monstrous all over again if it meant holding this child in his arms.

Wolf does not thank him again. He does something better.

He puts the prosthetic on and pulls the leather tight, smiling down at it as he gets a feel for the weight. Something Genichiro has given him that he will wear, always.

Genichiro buries his face in Tomoe and preens. She is so small, especially for an Ashina. She is quiet, and serious, and calm. Wolf is so strong in her.

Genichiro is in love, the way Kenjiro is in love; with Tomoe.

With Wolf.


	5. Vicarious

Kneeling across from Kuro feels like sitting at a war council. He is so small, but there is a determination in his gaze that is always unsettling. 

“You will not reconsider,” Genichiro says. “Even now.” It is beneath him to ask again. He will not beg.

Not even for this.

Kuro shakes his head, the minutest of gestures.

“I will not.”

Genichiro nods. He needs the Dragon’s Heritage, but he is patient. Pushing will not gain him any ground. They have Wolf. They have Tomoe. Genichiro can afford to wait.

“I have sent men to Hirata to begin repairing the damage and preparing the household for you. It will be restored to its former glory. There will be servants and provisions made available for you. I will come and speak to you in a few months. Perhaps watching your home come back to life around you will sway you where everything else has failed.”

Kuro doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink.

“You’re sending me away from Wolf. You will not let me see him. You think I am a threat.”

Genichiro doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch.

“Wolf has a family. A daughter. He needs rest, and to settle into his new life here without unpleasant reminders of his past. I cannot have you here… upsetting things. In time, perhaps you will be able to see him again. For now, you need to go home. Before winter arrives I will come make sure your household is prepared. Until then, I wish you safe travels.”

Genichiro stands. Kuro does not.

“I can feel him, you know. Wolf. My blood is in his veins, beating through his heart. If it ceases to do so I will know, and I can promise the Dragon’s Heritage will never belong to Ashina. If Kenjiro hurts him again, if Kenjiro kills him, I will repay the favor in kind.”

Genichiro turns. Pauses in the doorway.

“If Kenjiro hurts him again, I will repay the favor myself.”

Kuro departs the castle the next morning, leaving only his blood behind.

-

Once Wolf has recovered fully he and Kenjiro get married. It is traditional except in all the ways it is not. Isshin has Wolf’s wedding set commissioned, and his quarters are filled with intricate lacquered cosmetic boxes. Mirrors and mirror stands, jewelry boxes. There are calligraphy sets and a writing table, incense boxes, tea sets. It is a trousseau befitting the bride of the heir of Ashina, even if the bride himself did not provide it.

Isshin’s retainers are all at the ceremony with their eyes narrowed, curious about this omega that everyone has heard of but no one has seen. 

Someone who can survive more than a single night with Kenjiro is someone to be pitied, or someone to be feared. Both, perhaps. Either way, they want to take his measure. Genichiro doesn’t pity Wolf anymore.

They would not either if they knew him.

Kenjiro is bright eyed and smug and incandescently happy. Wolf is breathtaking in his shiromuku, painted up elaborately like he has not been in ages, wearing a white silk headdress. His prosthetic looks pristine. Emma stands nearby with Tomoe in her arms as Kenjiro and Wolf drink sake together. Wolf is  _ smiling,  _ subtle and barely there. A year ago, Genichiro cut off his arm and gave him to Doujun. A year ago, Genichiro tossed him in a cell and waited for his heat to come.

A year ago, Genichiro threw him into Kenjiro’s floor, instincts making him an animal, and left him to his fate.

Now he is Kenjiro’s wife. The mother of Kenjiro’s child.

Now he is smiling softly, eyes lingering on Tomoe where she is fast asleep, drinking his sake as Kenjiro stares like he wants to eat Wolf alive. He has already.

He will again.

Genichiro aches.

-

Kenjiro is different.

Kenjiro is different with  _ Wolf.  _

Kenjiro is different with everyone. The violence is still in him, but it no longer simmers at the surface. It has settled, and stilled. He holds Tomoe in his arms and she is the whole world.

He smiles at Wolf with so much love in his eyes. Kenjiro tells Wolf so, in front of everyone,  _ I love you, precious.  _ It isn’t shocking the way it might be with anyone but Kenjiro. Wolf returns his smiles, but not his words.

Not at first.

Kenjiro still feeds him by hand, but sometimes Wolf feeds himself, now. Wolf still does not speak when there are too many people around; guards, or retainers, or their families. Asa and Furi are always close, helping with Tomoe, and he talks softly with Isshin and Emma.

Talks with Genichiro, when they are alone. Kenjiro has stopped glaring when Genichiro scent marks Tomoe. Stopped drawing in storm clouds when he finds Genichiro kneeling next to Wolf’s bed. 

The violence in Kenjiro has settled, and stilled, but Genichiro’s instincts have not. Will not. Wolf and Kenjiro are his mates. Tomoe is his child. There is no reasoning with the alpha in him.

Genichiro has given up trying.

-

An omega with a newborn will usually not go into heat again until they have stopped nursing. Genichiro thinks he has time to prepare himself against the onslaught that will be Wolf’s cycle. It will be agony enduring it, but he expects to have a year or two to brace himself. He should have known better.

Nothing is easy for Genichiro, and Wolf isn’t like any other omega. Tomoe is scarcely three months old before Wolf starts smelling sweet; sakura, and want, and then he and Kenjiro are locked away in Wolf’s quarters with Asa and Furi allowed in only when Tomoe needs to nurse. Genichiro stands outside Wolf’s rooms and breathes in the scent that is seeping through the walls.

Wolf’s blatant desperation. Kenjiro’s shameless hunger. Slick, and sweat, and come. He stumbles back to his own quarters and wraps a fist around his knot. He is thinking of Wolf.

He is thinking of Kenjiro.

There are silver linings, even if they are their own kind of misery. Genichiro gets to spend hours upon hours with Tomoe, carrying her with him as he goes about his duties whenever possible. The generals don’t question him; Gyobu is always overjoyed to see her, talking in a high pitched voice and doing whatever he can to make her smile. Isshin steals her away sometimes, but it’s never very long before Genichiro takes her back. 

Asa and Furi come to get her every few hours, then bring her back smelling of Wolf and Kenjiro. Genichiro presses his face close and closes his eyes. 

When Wolf and Kenjiro finally emerge from Wolf’s rooms, the scent of heat still clinging, he is with child again. They need not wait to confirm it; Genichiro can smell it on him, the sakura overwhelming in the air. 

Wolf looks beautiful with Tomoe in his arms. Beautiful as he swells with Kenjiro’s second heir, Tomoe growing before their eyes. She’s sitting up soon, crawling faster than Genichiro expects. Then suddenly everyone is chasing her everywhere before she can crawl down the stairs, pull down a rack of weapons, climb up on the windowsill. 

It is lucky that Wolf, Kenjiro, and Genichiro have reflexes as fast as the lightning the twins pull down, because Tomoe tests them again and again.

Takeru comes in the midst of a storm, just as Tomoe did. Genichiro cradles her throughout Wolf’s labor, Kenjiro and Emma locked away in Wolf’s quarters. Genichiro listens to him groan, and shout, and sob.

Genichiro listens to Takeru wail, and then settle. He thinks there is no way he can love someone else the way he loves Tomoe. No one else can be so all-consuming. No one else can swallow him whole.

Then he goes into Wolf’s room and sees Takeru, latched onto Wolf’s chest asleep, and thinks  _ oh.  _

_ He is mine, too. _

If it had just been Tomoe, perhaps Genichiro could have borne it. Genichiro could have claimed she was his favorite and no one would have questioned a doting uncle, but looking at Takeru, it is impossible. He loves him. He loves Tomoe.

He will love them all like this; savagely. Endlessly.

The way he loves Kenjiro. The way he loves Wolf.

Genichiro scent marks Takeru without asking permission. He is so big. He looks so much like Kenjiro. When Genichiro is done, he does not apologize. Kenjiro watches him with a question in his eyes, but Genichiro doesn’t know how to answer it, so he does not try.

-

Genichiro comes to Wolf bearing gifts. For the children, of course, but for Wolf too. He brings Wolf soft kimono, and elaborate jewelry for his hair. Fans, and books, and blankets. Anything Genichiro sees that makes him think of Wolf he buys, stowing it away so he isn’t showering Wolf with too much at once. Wolf takes it all with a soft smile, not as bright as the one he gave Genichiro when presented with his prosthetic, but enough to soothe Genichiro’s instincts all the same. He gives Wolf gifts, and Wolf takes them, flushed and pleased.

The alpha in Genichiro soars; his mate is content. He is providing for him.

Genichiro goes to bed alone and dreams of Wolf’s first heat in Ashina. In his dreams, he takes Wolf from the dungeons and back to his own rooms instead of to Kenjiro’s quarters. Eases him down into his futon, Genichiro’s scent thick in the blankets. He bites gently at Wolf’s skin, sinks into him slowly. He’s wet, and tight, and perfect. Genichiro kisses him and listens to him moan; Wolf comes apart for him so beautifully. They wake up together the next day, Wolf blinking drowsy, golden eyes at him, smiling wide. Genichiro’s child is in his belly. Wolf is in love. Wolf is his  _ mate. _

He wakes up by himself in bed, come on his stomach and knot swollen and sore. Clouds roll in, thunder rumbling. The skies are dark all day.

Then he goes to see Wolf and the kids, and the sun breaks through.

He brings Wolf sweets. Fights back the croon that wants to bubble up when Wolf eats them in front of him.

Most of the belongings Wolf had on him when he was captured have long since been destroyed, but Genichiro finds some prayer bead bracelets that are close to what he used to wear. Wolf does not seem as happy to be given those. He takes them with a frown. Thanks Genichiro absently.

Smells like grief for long moments, but wears them every day. Genichiro has done something wrong. Genichiro has done something right.

  
Genichiro does not know what he’s doing, only that it hurts.

-

Wolf is gorgeous, round with Kenjiro’s children. Holding them close. Nursing them.

Wolf is gorgeous, always. Genichiro is lost.

Fatherhood has unwound Kenjiro until he is more relaxed than Genichiro has ever seen him. Wolf goes into heat again when Takeru is scarcely sleeping through the nights, and Kenjiro has another heir in him just as quickly. Genichiro creeps into their rooms at night when they are resting, exhausted from caring for Takeru and Tomoe, heedless of their cries. He gets there before Asa and Furi sometimes, and tends to whichever of the children is upset in all the ways he can. Genichiro changes them, and wipes their faces, and rocks them.

Sometimes Wolf does not stir, and Genichiro pulls the blankets down and tucks them against his chest to nurse. He watches them when they finally calm, snuggled up between Wolf and Kenjiro, utterly content. Usually, neither Wolf nor Kenjiro notice him.

Sometimes, they wake. Wolf watches with drowsy golden eyes,  _ thank you, Genichiro. _

Kenjiro looks lost, like it hurts somehow. As though Genichiro is wounded and he doesn’t know how to fix him. It isn’t Kenjiro’s fault; there is no way to fix him.

Genichiro is broken.

  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Ayame comes next, an omega. Wolf is more protective of her than the others.

  
Genichiro doesn’t blame him. Then there is Sparrow; another boy. Wolf is respected by the household, treated with all the deference he is due as wife of the heir of Ashina. He is more comfortable there now; he goes where he pleases, does what he pleases. Wolf roams the castle grounds and lingers in the gardens, Sparrow in his arms and Ayame sitting up at his feet, shoving fistfuls of dirt into her mouth when she can get away with it. Genichiro and Kenjiro stop her from swallowing bugs and earth, but Wolf does not seem troubled.

_ The two of you have still not grown out of eating it, why should I stop her? At least she is a child. _

It takes Genichiro longer than it should to realize Wolf is teasing.

Tomoe creeps through the flowers and trees, determined to be a shinobi. Genichiro does not know who told her about her mother; if it was Kenjiro, or Wolf, or someone else, but she is so small, and so quiet, and so aware. She will be formidable one day.

For now she is a child pretending but Genichiro was the same once; bow in hand, watching Kenjiro train with his spears. Genichiro wonders if she will take up the mantle of the heir, or if she will want to do something else; lead the nightjar, maybe. Trail through her mother’s footsteps even further.

Takeru stumbles into the pond on more than one occasion; Wolf is constantly snatching him back from the edge at the last second with an ease born of practice. There is always someone tugging at Wolf’s clothes, showing him a rock, asking him a question. He is settled into motherhood as though he was meant for nothing else in life. Genichiro knows it is not true. That once upon a time, Wolf was death itself. Now, he is family.

Every child he has takes another piece of Genichiro’s heart.

There are always children crawling on Wolf now, eager to be close to their mother. He is always nursing one, soothing another, caring for some injury or scrape. Wolf reads them to sleep, and chases them down stairs, and pulls them off furniture. It is second nature.

First nature, even. Wolf protects his children like he is merely breathing.

Genichiro travels to Hirata just before each successive child is born to check on the progress as it is rebuilt. The estate grows. Kuro grows.

He still will not yield.

Kenjiro isn’t lost, anymore. Genichiro doesn’t know what he is, except that it feels dangerous. Wolf is openly affectionate with him, and when Kenjiro says he loves him, Wolf says it in return. Genichiro doesn’t remember the first time he heard it. Kenjiro says other things, too.

Kenjiro tells Genichiro about how insatiable his mate has become with each successive child. That his heats are exhausting for Kenjiro, who can barely soothe him through the cycles anymore. That even outside of a heat, Wolf is always frantic. It is almost too much for Kenjiro to handle, he says, quietly when there is no one else to hear. 

_ Wolf is so needy,  _ Kenjiro says. Genichiro doesn’t remember when he became  _ Wolf,  _ instead of my pet, my wife, my mate. Doesn’t know why it is harder to hear.

And yet.

_ Wolf is frantic now, and it gets worse with every child. Soon, I don’t know what I will do with him. _

Genichiro can think of a few things.

Genichiro is on fire.

He catches them together more often. Kenjiro doesn’t take Wolf in the baths as often, but Genichiro finds them everywhere else— Kenjiro with Wolf pressed against the wall in a hallway. Kenjiro with Wolf in his lap on the stairs. Kenjiro in Wolf’s quarters, calling out after Genichiro has knocked,  _ come in, brother. _

Genichiro opens the door to find them tangled up together in Wolf’s bed, Kenjiro leaning against the wall, Wolf’s back pressed flush against his chest. Kenjiro pulls Wolf’s thighs apart to expose his cunt, belly swollen between his hips. Genichiro is fucking him from behind, his slit empty and wet and inviting.

_ Join us if you like, Genichiro. _

_ We’ve been waiting for you. _

Genichiro staggers from the room with wide eyes on the edge of terror, but it happens again, and again. He does not know if Kenjiro is serious.

Lately, it feels like he doesn’t know Kenjiro at all.

-

Genichiro goes back to his rooms and takes himself in hand. Grits his teeth and begs. For his brother. His brother’s Wolf.

No one is listening.

-

Isshin’s retainers come to him in his quarters; they are rarely so bold, but he has been evading them every time they bring up this subject and there is nowhere for him to run. Tomoe is sitting nearby, scribbling on a scrap of paper with a quill. She has taken to following him around the castle of late, and he isn’t going to complain.

Having one of the children close is always a comfort. Genichiro feels forlorn without them near.

“You have put it off long enough,” Isshin’s retainers say. “You cannot simply leave it to Kenjiro to provide for Ashina’s future.”

Ashina has always been protected by heroes, not armies. It is up to Genichiro and Kenjiro to make more, so Ashina will be protected long after they are gone. They are right that he needs an heir, even if it feels like he has them already. Genichiro has to stop himself from saying as much.

_ I have Tomoe, and Takeru. Ayame and Sparrow.  _

Genichiro does, and Genichiro doesn’t.

“We have taken it upon ourselves to speak with many of Isshin’s other retainers, as well as most of Ashina’s nobles. There are a good number of suitable omegas available, if you would only agree to meet them.”

Genichiro nods and sends them away with an air of finality, like he is accepting a grim fate. It feels like agreeing to his own execution.

It feels even worse. Meeting a bunch of demure, mewling omegas is the last thing he wants to do, but he doesn’t see any other way. The alpha in him is mated.

The rest of him is not.

Genichiro scrubs a smear of ink off Tomoe’s face and hands her a fresh scroll.


	6. Dragons

The first of Genichiro’s prospective brides is the eldest daughter of one of Isshin’s closest retainers. Her name is Ima. They meet in the gardens for tea, because it is the only place Genichiro can think of that will let him spend time with her but also stay close to the children. Ima is an omega with wide eyes and a bright smile that never leaves her face. Genichiro knows she is trying to be friendly, to be sweet, but the constant smile is unsettling. He cannot imagine being trapped in his quarters with her every night.

Genichiro spends most of their meeting forcing a grin that feels more like a grimace on his face, watching Tomoe secret herself away in some bushes and wait for the guards to walk past on their patrols. She is miniscule even for a four year old, peering out through the leaves with eyes that glow golden in the dark. They are beautiful. It’s hard not to stare.

Genichiro misses every other thing Ima says. When they part ways, her smile has finally faltered.

He will not meet with her again. Just the thought is suffocating.

Niwa is next, another daughter of Isshin’s retainers, their only omega. In the gardens again, though she takes one of Genichiro’s arms and drags him on a walk through the castle grounds. Once she opens her mouth to start talking Genichiro isn’t sure she closes it again. He isn’t listening to anything she says.

He is thinking of Takeru, too close to the pond. Wolf will catch him— he always does, but it still eases Genichiro’s mind to be near. He is thinking of Tomoe.

He is thinking of the sunlight in Wolf’s hair.

Genichiro leaves Niwa near the castle gates and never thinks of her again.

Sumi is a general’s daughter. Genichiro looms over her, as he looms over everyone, but not by very much. She is tall, and demure, and Genichiro cannot remember anything else about her once she bows and leaves his sight.

Yosa and Oichi and Hatsu. Oma and Chiyo and Oshi. They are from excellent families, perfect matches for Genichiro. They will strengthen Ashina. They are all different.

They are all the same. Too loud, too talkative, too tall. Short, but not quite short enough. They laugh too much. Touch Genichiro without asking. They are fragile in a way that makes him feel tired instead of protective. 

They do not know how to let silence fill the space around them when there is nothing to say. 

They do not smile at Wolf. They look uncertain around his children. One of them makes a subtly insulting remark about the nature of Kenjiro’s relationship with his mate, and it is all Genichiro can do to keep lightning from striking her before he sends her away. It is not only Genichiro who is unimpressed.

Kenjiro never misses an opportunity to disparage the omegas Genichiro is meeting. He says all the things Genichiro is thinking, except without any of the layers of niceties that are present even in Genichiro’s head. 

_ She is petty. She is weak. She is hideous. This one won’t survive the birthing bed. That one won’t survive court.  _

_ This one is after a name. That one is after your gold. _

On, and on, and on. The worst part about it is that Kenjiro isn’t wrong.

_ Why do you care so much who I take to mate, Kenjiro? _

Kenjiro looks at Genichiro like he is a fool.

Sometimes he doesn’t bother badmouthing them to Genichiro.

Sometimes, before Genichiro even meets them, he sees Kenjiro whispering in their ears. Watches them going pale, like they have seen a ghost. Watches them leaving; he cannot be upset. Genichiro doesn’t know what Kenjiro says to them, but it is easy enough to guess. Something about himself.

Something about Wolf.

Eventually just the mention of yet another omega coming to call on him is enough to have his stomach twisting with dread. Genichiro starts leaving his quarters or the war room or the banquet hall before his retainers summon him, hiding away in Wolf’s rooms instead. He rocks Sparrow when he fusses. Brushes Tomoe’s hair. Reads to them, and plays games, and listens to Wolf sing them songs. It is not all he needs, but it is close.

Courtship should be easy, the way it is easy with Wolf. Easy to spend time with him. 

Easy to imagine breathing him in, always. Easy to give him gifts; Genichiro comes to Wolf with fine blankets to wrap around his children. Fine clothes to wrap about Wolf. Expensive toys, rare incense, rich sweets. Genichiro has to sneak them to Wolf so the children don’t get to them first. Sometimes Wolf doesn’t have a free hand, and he eyes the plate. Leans in towards Genichiro.

Opens his mouth. Lets Genichiro press sugars and dango and daifuku between his lips. Sometimes his tongue drags along Genichiro’s fingers. Wolf holds his gaze. Genichiro’s scent is rife with want.

Both of them pretend not to notice.

Eventually Genichiro’s retainers seem to give up trying. It does not matter how many omegas they bring to the castle for Genichiro.

None of them are Wolf.

Wolf is already here.

-

Spending more time with Wolf means spending more time with Kenjiro. Genichiro is grateful.

It is like finally taking off his armor at the end of a battle. Their lives have often been fraught, and there is usually a battle waiting for them, but Genichiro always had his brother.

Then he gave Wolf to Kenjiro, and had much less of him. First it was simply Kenjiro staying in his quarters all day to fuck his new toy, and Genichiro was less lonely than he was annoyed; they had a war to win, land to rule, people to protect. He needed Kenjiro present, not buried between some omega’s thighs.

A few months in, and Wolf was much more than a toy; Wolf was a mate. Wolf was a wife. 

Wolf was a mother.

Wolf was everything, as Genichiro had once been everything. It was his own fault he was not anymore. He’d been the one to push Kenjiro away.

With every child Kenjiro’s duties as a father grow. Instead of growing further apart from his brother, they have grown close again. Genichiro loves Wolf’s children like they are his own. There is Wolf with a child tucked in his arms, another playing at his feet. Kenjiro, teaching Tomoe basic martial art forms and strikes.

Genichiro, guiding Takeru’s unsteady hand as he writes out kanji in a childish scrawl. They are a family again. He is Kenjiro’s, again. Mostly.

Kenjiro is his again.

Mostly.

-

Genichiro reads the letter for the sixteenth time. Sets it down.

Picks it up and reads it again.

Kuro would have known when he wrote it that Genichiro would intercept any correspondence and read it long before it reached Wolf. As much as it is a letter to his shinobi, it is also a letter to Genichiro. Kuro is no longer his master, but they are still bound together by blood.

An alpha now, to an omega that had once been his own, in a way.

_ I implore you to bring your family to Hirata for my presentation ceremony. I miss you dearly, and long to meet your sons and daughters. The estate is all but finished now, far from the ruin you last saw. I hope this letter finds you well, and brings you home, at least for a while. _

There is more, but Genichiro’s eyes gloss over it; they are meaningless pleasantries not meant for him. He can smell gunpowder, the scent billowing in through the windows. He can smell the herbs from Isshin’s tea.

He can smell death, following his grandfather around like a shroud that is impatiently waiting to swallow him. Isshin has held on for so long, but all heroes must fall. It seems a shame that it is like this, instead of with a sword in his hand, but Isshin is not like Genichiro and Kenjiro. He does not cling to life when it would be better to let go.

They are only waiting for it to take him; Genichiro, Kenjiro, and Emma. Gyobu and the Seven Spears. His generals and retainers. It is not only Ashina that is waiting.

It is the Ministry, too. As soon as he has fallen, they will take the chance to strike while Ashina grieves. To end them while they are reeling from the loss of their leader. 

Genichiro cannot allow it.

He rolls up the scroll and goes to find Wolf.

-

Wolf reads the letter.

Reads it again. His eyes are wet, and he smells like mourning.

Like someone has died.

Like he knows what Genichiro will say, even before he says it.

“He is like a child to me,” Wolf whispers, fingers trembling over the words on the scroll. “I would like very much if I could go and see him.”

Kenjiro is watching from the corner of the room with dark eyes. Wolf looks up at Genichiro through his lashes, waiting. 

“I cannot let you go,” Genichiro says. Wolf blinks, nodding like it is what he expected, reaching up to wipe at his cheek with the heel of his hand.

Wolf is heavily pregnant, expecting his fifth child in less than two months, not to mention that Sparrow and Ayame are still nursing. Traveling through Ashina with two young children as the Ministry threatens to close in is a risk Genichiro is not willing to take with his nieces and nephews.

“Kenjiro and I will go and bring him here instead,” Genichiro finishes. 

Wolf makes a noise that sounds like he’s choking, and then his arms are around Genichiro, face buried in his throat.

“Thank you, Genichiro.”

Genichiro lets him linger there longer than he should. Kenjiro watches them both like a predator waiting to strike.

He leaves with Wolf’s scent in his skin and guilt laid over him like a fog. He does not deserve Wolf’s gratitude.

Genichiro deserves Wolf’s sword.

-

They go to Hirata right away. Kuro isn’t surprised to see them, but neither is he pleased. He sits at the head of his table looking far more grown than Genichiro is prepared for, even if he’d seen him just over a year ago. Kuro is almost seventeen, but it is not his appearance that has Genichiro narrowing his eyes. It is his scent.

Before Genichiro is an alpha who has more claim to Wolf than he ever has, or ever will. Wolf’s  _ master,  _ even if it is only in name now.

“Lord Genichiro. Lord Kenjiro. Sit if you must. Let us have this conversation again, I suppose.”

Kuro thinks they are there to ask for the Dragon’s Heritage. He is right.

He is wrong.

Genichiro sits. Kenjiro doesn’t.

“Wolf is doing well. His children are doing well. He could not come with us to attend your presentation ceremony. Traveling is dangerous right now, as you know, of course. Especially so close to his due date and nursing two young children.” 

Kuro nods, wearier than someone his age has any right to be, but Genichiro cannot blame him.

“He could not come with us, but we could bring you to see him. Let you move back to the castle. You could meet all his children, get to know his family. Be a part of his life.” Genichiro pauses.

Kuro waits.

“For a price, of course.”

-

They return to Ashina castle as dragons. 

Wolf is running down the castle steps when they arrive, a flurry of guards and children and servants trailing after him. Asa and Furi follow directly behind Wolf with Sparrow and Ayame in their arms, another pair of omegas leading Tomoe and Takeru by the hand. Wolf is far enough along in his pregnancy that it makes Genichiro nervous to see him moving so quickly down the stairs. Kenjiro, too, if the anxiety in his scent is any indication.

Kuro’s own scent is sailing with joy, a wide smile on his face. He starts running too, but Wolf reaches the bottom of the stairs before Kuro can begin climbing them. Wolf stops as Kuro approaches, vibrating with energy. There is joy in him, too, but it is tinged with shame. 

Wolf falls to his knees.

Wolf bows his head.

“I am sorry I failed you, my Lord.”

It is so quiet Genichiro barely hears. Wolf looks so vulnerable there, kneeling with his belly swelling out in front of him, hair grown long around his face. Kenjiro’s face is made of stone.

Genichiro does not know what his own looks like. Something ugly, if he were to guess.

Something complicated.

Kuro falls to his knees with a croon, wrapping his arms around Wolf and tucking his face into his neck. He drags his cheeks across Wolf’s throat, nuzzling into him with unbridled affection. It does not feel like a child and his shinobi anymore.

It feels like an alpha marking Genichiro’s mate.

Kenjiro snarls low and takes a step forward; Genichiro grabs his arm instinctively to hold him back even though he’s swallowing a growl of his own. Kuro is like Wolf’s own son. Both of them have said so, repeatedly. It does not soothe the alpha in Genichiro.

It does not soothe Kenjiro either, it seems. There is aggression swirling through his scent, only barely held back. They cannot intercede in this.

Ashina castle is Kuro’s home now. He has held up his part of their bargain, and now they must do the same.

Grit their teeth, and hold their tongues, and let Kuro nose over Wolf’s glands and croon like he owns him.

“You did not fail me, Wolf. If anyone has failed it is me.” Wolf makes a noise of protest and starts to speak, but Kuro interrupts. “I do not wish to speak of it. I want to see your family. It is long overdue.”

They are still kneeling on hard stone, arms tight around one another. Tomoe and Takeru are watching, heads tilted in confusion, asking Asa and Furi questions in soft voices. Sparrow is starting to fuss; his mother isn’t holding him, and he wants to know why.

“How long are you staying?” Wolf asks, and Kuro shakes his head.

“I will not leave again.”

Wolf lets out a sob but swallows it quickly, nodding his head.

“I am glad.”

Genichiro is too. 

There is a war to fight. Wolf should not be left here alone.

-

Kuro spends his first days in the castle sitting with Wolf in the gardens, or his quarters; talking, talking, talking.

Genichiro has never heard Wolf say so many words. Kuro is always holding one of Wolf’s children, smiling when they play with his hair. There is something familiar about Kuro’s scent; it is not the same as Wolf’s, but there is a hint of it there. Kuro’s blood in Wolf, as it is now in Genichiro and Kenjiro. The children all love Kuro, Tomoe most of all. Genichiro doesn’t get Wolf to himself as often, but it does not matter.

Genichiro and Kenjiro have a war to fight. A war they will seek out, rather than wait for it to come to their home. Isshin is fading fast. When they come back— if they come back, Kuro’s desperation to be constantly close to Wolf will have faded some. It will no longer be a novelty to see Wolf each day. It will just be the way things are, now.

As much as it rankles watching another alpha mark Wolf, one that is not his brother, seeing Wolf so happy is a gift all its own. 

It is scarcely a week after Kuro arrives that Moth follows, thunder rumbling outside the way it always does when he labors. Kenjiro and Genichiro cannot help themselves.

Wolf is in pain, and they call down the storm.

Moth comes into the world quietly, whimpering until she is pressed against her mother’s chest to feed. Kenjiro holds her first after that. Passes her to Genichiro shortly after. Kuro cries when she is finally given over to him.

Isshin cradles her with trembling hands, eyes unfocused. They have been failing him a while. Genichiro wonders if he can see her at all.

“I am so glad I got to hold you, little caterpillar,” he says. Genichiro is worried he might not have the strength to support her weight, but his arms do not let him down. “Make sure to help your mother keep your father and uncle in line when I am gone. Emma can’t do it all on her own.”

Isshin drifts away a few weeks later at sunset. Genichiro is by his side, trying to be stoic. 

“I know what you want,” Isshin says, eyes already closed. “Wolf knows it, too. Don’t be such a fool that you won’t reach and take something that is already yours. You and Kenjiro have always shared everything. This doesn’t have to be any different.” 

Isshin reaches blindly for his hand and squeezes. Even on the edge of death, he is still so strong. 

“Kenjiro loves you. Wolf… could. If you allowed him. I do not worry about Ashina, but I do worry about you. Tell me, Genichiro. Tell me you will try.”

Genichiro nods, and Isshin laughs.

“I cannot see you, boy. Say it.” 

Genichiro swallows. It hurts to breathe.

“I will try, grandfather.”

Isshin smiles.

“Good,” he says, patting Genichiro’s hand. “Good. I need to rest a while. I am so tired.”

Isshin deserves his rest, and he takes it as the sun drops below the horizon, and never wakes again. Genichiro had known it was coming. Had thought he was ready.

Had been wrong.

It hurts.

Gods, it hurts.

He finds Kenjiro in his old quarters, all but abandoned since Wolf was given his own rooms. He’s laying on his old futon, watching the doorway. 

He’s waiting for Genichiro. 

Genichiro crawls in bed with him, and they wrap their arms around each other. They have not held one another this way since Tomoe was first born, and before that, since Genichiro shunned Kenjiro’s touch. They tuck their faces into each other’s throats.

They both smell like Wolf, and the children, and grief.

Genichiro closes his eyes and lets it take him.

-

It takes time to prepare for war, but not as much as Genichiro expects. Wolf will be the sitting lord of Ashina in their absence. The generals don’t question Kenjiro or Genichiro when they make this declaration. Gyobu looks proud, as though it is somehow his doing. He adores Wolf so much, sometimes Genichiro wants to growl. Most of the elites and retainers accept it without argument. Those who might give them problems, Kenjiro visits personally.

Then there are no problems anymore.

Genichiro comes to Wolf’s quarters with one last gift before they embark on their campaign. Something he found in a nearby temple.

Something Wolf will need if he is to keep their children safe while Genichiro and Kenjiro are away. He waits until Kenjiro is gone and kneels at Wolf’s bedside, passing over a bundle of silk. Wolf takes it without question— it is not the first gift Genichiro has given him. It is not the hundredth.

Genichiro keeps giving him things, trying to fill the hole in his chest, but it just feels emptier.

“You will need to protect Ashina in our absence. Yourself, and the children.”

Wolf unwraps the silk to find an intricate prosthetic made of what looks like bone. The workmanship is delicate. Complicated. It is a dozen different weapons.

It is a weapon all its own. Wolf runs his fingers across it, breath catching as he studies it.

Then he looks at Genichiro, and smiles.

“Thank you, Genichiro.”

Wolf leans over and tucks his face into Genichiro’s throat.

Wolf presses a soft kiss to Genichiro’s jaw.

Genichiro holds him.

Genichiro shakes.

Genichiro rides away from Ashina the next day with Wolf’s scent still clinging. It will be a long time until they return. Both of them are dragons now, and the Ministry is not prepared.

Genichiro trusts Wolf with Ashina.

He trusts Ashina with Wolf.

-

WOLF

-

The top of the castle is the highest point in all of Ashina. It lays spread out below him, sprawling and ancient and beautiful. Until Genichiro and Kenjiro return, it belongs to Wolf. 

He could leave it behind. Kiss his children and vanish into the trees.

He can still make out the procession of soldiers in the distance, the dust they stir up clouding the horizon. Genichiro and Kenjiro are in the lead, riding off to face the Ministry. To protect Ashina.

To protect Wolf.

He runs his fingers over the prosthetic Genichiro gave him. Wolf has never seen a finer weapon, nor one more suited to him. 

He could leave Ashina.

He will not. His children make up so many pieces of him now. Wolf is undying, but he would not survive without them. Tomoe’s quiet eyes. Sparrow’s noisy cries. Moth is so small, Ayame so sensitive. Takeru looks so much like his father. He cannot take them all with him. He will not leave them behind.

Even if he could, the thought makes him ache. He loves his children more than he has ever hated Genichiro or Kenjiro.

Genichiro loves Wolf in ways even Kenjiro cannot. Kenjiro loves him in all the ways he is able.

Wolf should not love them in return, and yet.

He stays on the rooftop until his chest starts to ache, and he knows Moth needs to nurse.

Then he climbs down, and finds her, and holds her close.


	7. Home

GENICHIRO

-

The campaign is punishing even before they make it to the Ministry’s seat of power in the region. There are assassins ambushing their forces, and skirmishes with bands of soldiers all along the route. It is months of travel before they reach their destination and prepare to lay siege. The Ministry will come and fight them, or they will sit inside their walls and starve. Genichiro does not care which, even if he is itching to draw his bow.

Along the way they make camp every night, packing it all up again in the morning to keep trudging along. They stumble across Memorial Mob merchants, and Kenjiro is always rifling through their wares to buy things for Wolf and the children. 

Toys sometimes, always something finely crafted but well worn. Fans, and hair combs. There are loose stones that could be set into jewelry; ivory and mother of pearl. Tortoiseshell bracelets. Necklaces in silver and gold and shakudo copper. Weapons more rarely, but only the most pristine will do for Wolf, or sometimes Tomoe. Anyone else’s child and she would be too young for daggers, but she is Kenjiro’s, and she is Wolf’s, and she is old enough.

It is not only gifts Kenjiro is sending home. He writes to Wolf almost daily, going on about how much he misses Wolf and the children, his horse and her mood swings, the daily minutiae of waging war. Kenjiro tells Wolf about the men he kills, and how Genichiro is always frowning and mumbling about the Ministry. Tells Wolf about the fields of flowers they passed one day, and how he wants to name their next daughter Ajisai.

Kenjiro laments that Wolf’s letters are much more impersonal; he informs Kenjiro of the state of Ashina, giving him updates about all the children in utilitarian fashion. The letters read more like a status report from a general than something from one mate to another. Wolf doesn’t know how to express himself.

Genichiro cannot speak on it; he does not know, either.

The older children are learning to write, practicing shaky calligraphy in the letters they send their father. They mix up characters, and some of the pages Kenjiro gets are illegible, but he saves them all. Smiles at the scribbled words. They ask after Genichiro.

Wolf asks after Genichiro. On other pages there are Moth’s tiny footprints in black ink next to Ayame’s smeared handprints. Genichiro thinks of Wolf wrestling a wiggling, ink covered child in his arms, pressing tickling feet into paper so Kenjiro can have some small piece of his family. His chest aches. He and Kenjiro both trace over the pages wistfully, smiling. 

After Kenjiro finds a particularly exquisite set of kunai from a man peddling his wares further into Ministry territory and sends them to Wolf, he gets a scrap of cloth in return, drenched in Wolf’s scent.

In Wolf’s slick.

Genichiro is the one who opens all the correspondence, sitting in his tent with Kenjiro frowning at a map on the other side of the table. The smell of Wolf’s want hits Genichiro like a blow. He swears low, swaying as though he’s been struck. 

Kenjiro is on his feet with bright eyes, snatching the cloth out of Genichiro’s hand and pressing it to his face. It has been months since they left home.

Kenjiro croons into the cloth.

“Wolf,” he sighs, groaning and letting his eyes fall closed. “Gods, I miss him,” Kenjiro says. Genichiro can’t speak for a moment.

He misses him, too.

Kenjiro disappears out of Genichiro’s tent, heading off towards his own. Genichiro doesn’t have to ask why; it is lonely on the warpath, even with his brother. 

Even just a brief snatch of Wolf’s scent is enough to have Genichiro agonizingly hard. Then he looks down into the satchel he pulled the cloth from and freezes. There is another scrap of cotton, identical to the first. Genichiro presses it to his face, and shakes.

Genichiro eases a hand into his clothes. He thinks of Wolf.

He thinks of Kenjiro.

There is shame, but mostly there is need. 

Genichiro bites his lip and does not call his brother’s name.

-

When they reach the Ministry’s territory they set up camp in earnest to ready for the siege. Kenjiro and Genichiro have had separate tents on the march, next to one another. Close.

Not close enough.

Kenjiro comes to Genichiro’s tent the very first night they settle, face drawn and shadows under his eyes. He kneels next to Genichiro’s futon and eases himself into it. His arms slide around Genichiro like they have been sleeping together, always.

“What are you doing, Kenjiro?”

Genichiro’s voice sounds weak. Breathless. There is no light to see.

He can only feel.

“Shhh,” Kenjiro says, tucking his face into the back of Genichiro’s neck. “I cannot sleep alone. I am so tired. I miss Wolf, and my children. I miss you, too. Do not deny me this.”

Genichiro cannot.

They go to sleep together that night, and the one after that. Kenjiro brings his things into Genichiro’s tent, and no one says a word.

-

Sometimes they come back to camp from a battle, adrenaline singing inside their bones, covered in blood and the scent of ozone. Kenjiro watches Genichiro take off his armor, wild eyed with the same kind of hunger Genichiro feels low in his stomach. Kenjiro wants Genichiro.

Genichiro wants Kenjiro.

They do not take what they want.

At least, not yet.

Kenjiro climbs into bed behind Genichiro, face pressed into his hair as he breathes, breathes, breathes.

“I love you, Genichiro. I would give you anything.”

Genichiro reaches behind himself to fist his hand in Kenjiro’s hair.

“I love you too, brother.”

He would give him anything, too.

It is a long time before Genichiro falls asleep.

-

The Ministry fights hard but they don’t stand a chance. Not against two dragons.

Not against Genichiro and Kenjiro, Ashina’s dirt in their mouths and Kuro’s blood in their veins and the lightning coming down from the heavens to fight beside them. Genichiro is tired.

Genichiro is victorious. 

Kenjiro is breathtaking, blood on his spear, grinning like he owns the world. Genichiro grins back.

They are going home.

-

When they climb the castle steps Wolf is waiting at the top with Moth in his arms. He is still so small, but it is hard to tell with all of Ashina laid out at his feet, generals behind him and eyes glinting golden. He does not look like Kenjiro’s mate, or Tomoe’s mother. Not Genichiro’s prisoner. Not even a shinobi.

Wolf looks like the Lord of Ashina. Genichiro has the overwhelming urge to kneel.

The other children run down to meet them. Tomoe gets there first, Takeru not far behind, both of them yelling for their father and jumping into his arms. Kenjiro scoops them up without missing a step, burying his face in their necks in turn to scent mark them. Ayame is next, and Kenjiro manages to pick her up too, hugging them tightly as he climbs to where Wolf waits with Sparrow and Moth.

Kenjiro and Wolf stare at one another for a long moment. 

Then Wolf reaches up and tugs Kenjiro down into a kiss. It is hungry and unapologetic; neither of them care that everyone is watching. When they finally pull away, Wolf doesn’t untangle his fingers from Kenjiro’s hair, but holds him there instead.

“I missed you,” he says, like it is a surprise. Kenjiro smiles and kisses him again. 

“I missed you,” Kenjiro replies. He shoves his face into Wolf’s throat and breathes, breathes, breathes.

All his children are pressed in close, hugging Kenjiro tightly. They look beautiful together. A family, when Genichiro never expected him to have one.

Kenjiro has a family, even without Genichiro. 

Genichiro loves them all so much he feels sick with it.

Then Wolf looks up from underneath his lashes, mouth still buried against Kenjiro’s throat. He passes Moth carefully to Kenjiro and extends his hand towards Genichiro. Gestures for Genichiro to come closer.

Pulls Genichiro into them all, hand fisted in his clothes.

“I missed you, too,” Wolf says.

Genichiro nods but cannot speak.

Everything aches.

-

They’ve been home for less than half a day before it becomes readily apparent that Kenjiro’s arrival has triggered Wolf’s heat. They’re gathered in the war room with all the generals— those they’d taken and those they’d left behind. 

Apparently things had not gone as peacefully in Genichiro’s and Kenjiro’s absence as Wolf’s letters had led them to believe, but Wolf had forbidden the generals from telling them about any of it; the Ministry’s small invasion forces trying to take over Ashina while the bulk of their soldiers were away. A neighboring clan attempting to use the army’s absence as an opportunity to expand their territory. Owl and some of the Usui clan coming to stir up trouble.

_ Why did you not tell us,  _ Kenjiro asks. Wolf shrugs as though he has not spent the year they’ve been gone fighting off one enemy after another with a skeleton crew of soldiers.

_ You would have come home before you were finished with the Ministry. I had it under control. _

He still has things under control, it seems. The generals who’d stayed behind to keep Ashina safe defer to Wolf first, even though Kenjiro and Genichiro are home now. They look to him for answers, and take his orders effortlessly. It should not be so jarring— they’d left him in charge of Ashina, after all. 

Genichiro has wanted Wolf for so long he let himself forget that Wolf was a killer first, and everything else second. Leadership is gorgeous on him. Genichiro watches proud Ashina elites bow and nod,  _ yes, Lord Wolf,  _ and prays everyone thinks the spike of lust in the air belongs to Kenjiro.

As things wear on the scent of sakura and heat begins creeping into the air around them all. Wolf flushes, shifts in place. He keeps looking at Kenjiro.

He keeps looking at Genichiro.

Eventually he excuses himself,  _ please don’t delay the banquet on my account. _

_ Kenjiro, I will be in my quarters waiting. _

It sounds like a promise.

Genichiro closes his eyes and tries not to croon.

-

The banquet is a small affair. There will be a larger one later when Wolf’s heat has passed, with all the lords and ladies of Ashina in attendance. For now there are simply a handful of retainers and the generals who are not with their own families. The children, and elders, and elites. Emma and her assistants are tending to wounded soldiers. Gyobu comes for long enough to say hello to Tomoe and the others, and then he is gone again.

Kenjiro manages an hour before he excuses himself to the jeers and whistles of his men.

_ Time to go make another heir, eh, Kenjiro? _

He laughs but does not answer. 

Kenjiro doesn’t discuss his wife with anyone but Genichiro.

-

Genichiro retires early, insisting he is tired. It is true, even as it is a lie. They had rested well enough on their way back to Ashina castle.

Genichiro hasn’t slept so well in ages as he does with Kenjiro’s face tucked in his throat. Kenjiro’s arms around him, the quiet sound of his breathing, the warmth of his body.

Now they are back home, and Kenjiro doesn’t need Genichiro in his bed. He has his wife.

Has his Wolf. 

Genichiro is alone again.

It was painful enough watching Wolf and Kenjiro together before, but now the emptiness in him feels sharper. Wolf is down the hall with Kenjiro, mindless with heat. Kenjiro will tend to him; knot him. Breed him.

Kiss him and hold him close and clean him. They are in love with one another, the way Genichiro is in love with them. Genichiro thinks of Wolf with his thighs spread, cunt exposed and swollen with need. Dripping wet, Kenjiro’s fingers shoved into him, mouth open as he whines. Genichiro knows just what it looks like.

He has seen it more than once. Kenjiro has made sure of that. Genichiro closes a fist around the half-formed knot under his robes and grits his teeth.

Genichiro shatters a vase against the wall with a shout. He has always been pathetic but it has never been quite this blatant. Kenjiro, always letting him see Wolf in disarray. Kenjiro, casually inviting him to join. 

Kenjiro with his mouth against Genichiro’s throat,  _ I would give you anything. _

Genichiro doesn’t know if that is true, but he is going to find out.

He flings his door to the side and the scent of sakura and slick and ozone hits him in the face. There is a satchel at his feet, a scrap of paper with his name on it tied around the cloth with a strand of silk. Genichiro picks it up unthinkingly— he doesn’t have time for messages or gifts or distractions.

He needs to get to Wolf.

When he opens the ties he almost falls to his knees. It is a strip of fabric like the ones Wolf had sent to the battlefield, dripping with his scent, except this one is different. This one smells of  _ heat. _

This one is just for  _ Genichiro. _

He stumbles down the hall in a daze with the cloth pressed to his face. Stops outside Wolf’s door and lays his palm on the wall beside it.

Breathes, breathes, breathes.

When he knocks, his hand is quaking.

It is Wolf who invites him inside.

-

KENJIRO

-

He does not remember being his father’s son. Barely remembers his mother. Before anything else, he is Genichiro’s. 

First, Kenjiro belongs to his brother.

Then Genichiro pushes him away, and he belongs to no one. It hurt like nothing else has ever hurt. It is a wound that will not heal.

It is a piece of himself that Kenjiro is missing. Until it is returned, he will not be whole.

Kenjiro has given up trying.

Wolf is something he owns, and then someone who owns him. Kenjiro did not think he could love anyone the way he loves Genichiro. He doesn’t, and he does. Now there is Wolf, and they have been through so much misery together, most of it at Kenjiro’s hands. Tomoe’s scars. Wolf’s fury. Kenjiro only knew how to break things.

Now he has learned better. His children have taught him.

Wolf has taught him. His life is more than he ever thought possible. Even without his teacher, without his father, without Isshin, he is so full it hurts his chest. Moth is delicate, and Tomoe is quietly ferocious, and Ayame is endlessly curious. Sparrow and his wide eyes that miss nothing. Takeru and his stumbling little steps. Kenjiro doesn’t deserve them, but it does not matter. 

Deserving things is overrated, and he will take all the blessings that fate is foolish enough to give him. Kenjiro has almost everything.

Still, he misses Genichiro. 

Genichiro brought Wolf to soothe Kenjiro’s instincts. Even knowing his intent, Kenjiro couldn’t resist. Wolf is everything he didn’t know he needed. His mate. His wife. The mother of his children. Something inside Kenjiro will not quiet until Wolf is close. Genichiro watches.

Genichiro  _ watches.  _

Genichiro lurks in the shadows of the baths, at the end of the hall, outside of Wolf’s door. At first, Kenjiro thinks he is jealous of Wolf.

Then, he thinks Genichiro is jealous of  _ him.  _ He is right, and he is wrong.

Genichiro wants them both. Kenjiro thinks if he waits long enough, Genichiro will come to them on his own. So he waits, and he waits, and he waits, and Genichiro never does. He brings Wolf presents, an alpha courting his mate. It is obvious to everyone except Genichiro. He teaches Tomoe how to use a bow and arrow. Teaches Takeru how to write his name. Genichiro raises Wolf’s children as surely as Kenjiro and pretends not to notice the way his brother watches him.

It is a practiced obliviousness. Genichiro can feel Kenjiro’s eyes on him.

Kenjiro can scent it in the air.

It takes a war to break him, in the end. If Kenjiro had known he would have dragged them off to face the Ministry years ago. They are away from home so long. He knew he would miss Wolf and his children, but he didn’t know it would be so much like carrying a knife in his chest. Their absence is a blade, and it cuts him every time he breathes. Kenjiro is empty, but he is not alone.

Genichiro lets Kenjiro crawl into his bed. Genichiro lets Kenjiro press close and hold him. It has been almost a decade since he’s been able to wrap his arms around Genichiro. Shove his nose into his throat and breathe in deep. Winning the war is a blessing and a curse.

They go home to Wolf, and Kenjiro is glad. 

Genichiro will not be in his bed at night anymore, and the thought twists that blade in his chest, and doesn’t ease.

  
  


Then Wolf pulls Genichiro into them on the steps of the castle.

_ I missed you, too,  _ and Kenjiro cannot abide this anymore. He can already scent the heat on Wolf.

They will not spend it without Genichiro.

-

By the time Kenjiro returns to Wolf’s quarters he is frantic with need. The scent is enough to make Kenjiro’s mouth water. He’s hard instantly, knot swelling in readiness. There is no way to explain to his instincts that Wolf is not for him this time. 

Wolf and Kenjiro have talked about Genichiro more than once, sometimes when Kenjiro is buried in him,  _ I see the way you look at him. The way he looks at you. _

_ When we finally have him in bed with us, you’ll take good care of him, won’t you? _

Wolf had whined, and nodded, and come so hard he had the shakes afterwards. It was not the first time they spoke of Genichiro joining them, and it was not the last.

As much as Genichiro wanted Wolf, Wolf wanted Genichiro, too. Wolf hasn’t been yearning as long as Genichiro, but watching him with their children, it’s impossible not to fall in love.

Kenjiro looks at Wolf, nested in their bed and fingering himself. He’s flushed bright red, slick on his thighs and his hair in tangles. His knuckles are shining, wrist working. It is futile; he cannot finish like this. Not anymore.

Wolf needs a knot. Kenjiro’s fingers, or Kenjiro’s mouth. Still, he is beautiful. Kenjiro drops to his knees and runs his hands up Wolf’s body, leaning down to kiss him roughly. They haven’t been together in over a year, and it is agony to wait, but Genichiro gave him the gift of Wolf, once.

He deserves to receive it in return.

“I want to send for him,” Kenjiro says against Wolf’s mouth, tugging his fingers out of himself and pressing his own forward instead. “I don’t want him sleeping alone. He’s missed you. He loves you. You would be so gorgeous with Genichiro’s child in your belly, Wolf.”

Wolf whimpers, slick pulsing out around Kenjiro’s fingers as he nods. 

They soak some silk in Wolf’s scent and send a servant to leave it outside Genichiro’s door. 

It is agony, but they wait.

-

When he finally knocks, it is Wolf who calls him inside.

“Come in,” he says, breathless. It is a voice only Kenjiro has heard until now.

He is so relieved to be sharing it with his brother. Genichiro steps inside and closes the door, satchel still pressed tight to his face as though he cannot bear to be parted from Wolf’s scent, even in his presence. 

Kenjiro is holding Wolf in his lap, Wolf’s back pressed against his chest, legs thrown over Kenjiro’s knees to force them open. It is to keep him from getting any friction; when he comes next, it is for Genichiro. Wolf is reaching behind himself with his prosthetic, bone fingers dug viciously into Kenjiro’s hair. Kenjiro holds his other hand by the wrist, sucking fingers into his mouth one at a time to watch him writhe.

He loves Wolf, but he still loves taking him apart.

Genichiro stands just inside the doorway, wide eyed and wild as he stares. Wolf is whining, shifting in Kenjiro’s lap, slick dripping from his cunt to soak the futon underneath them. It has been so long since he’s been touched, the pain has to be unbearable. His alpha is there; his body expects to be soothed, yet he is empty.

Genichiro’s eyes rove over Wolf, darting from his face to his cunt and back again. He sways as though he might fall to his knees. 

Kenjiro knows the feeling. Wolf is such a gift.

“Genichiro,  _ please.”  _ Wolf’s voice is ragged. Shameless. “It  _ hurts.” _

Genichiro whines too.

Genichiro crosses the room and drops down, shoving his mouth against Wolf’s as he shudders. Kenjiro watches them kiss. He has been waiting so long to give this to Genichiro.

His hands are all over Wolf. He cannot decide where to let them settle. Genichiro runs them through Wolf’s hair and cups his face, then drags his palms down his throat. Squeezes his chest, then rubs his hand over Wolf’s belly. Kenjiro knows what he is thinking— how breathtaking Wolf looks swollen with a child. How unthinkably perfect it would be if it belonged to him, this time.

Genichiro whimpers again, murmuring to Wolf between kisses.

“I love you,” he says. It sounds like he is crying. “Wolf, I love you.”

Wolf nods, petting his fingers through Genichiro’s hair.

“I know,” he whispers, rubbing his thumb over Genichiro’s glands to ease the ache there. “I love you too, Genichiro.”

Watching it roll over Genichiro is like breathing after too long underwater. He buries his face in Wolf’s throat, rubbing back and forth, dragging his mouth across it. Kenjiro reaches forward and sinks his fingers into Genichiro’s hair, scratching at his scalp.

“It’s okay, brother. He wants you.”

Genichiro bites down with a whimper, and Kenjiro can smell Wolf’s lust spike in the air. Finally, his brother’s teeth in Wolf’s throat. Kenjiro is crooning; at Wolf.

At Genichiro.

When Genichiro finally relaxes his jaw he mouths his way down to Wolf’s chest, taking his swollen pectorals in both hands and squeezing. He stares in awe for a long moment, milk pearling up at the tips of Wolf’s nipples, before taking one into his mouth with a groan. Wolf’s writhing intensifies while Genichiro takes deep pulls, jaw and throat working as he swallows again and again. The sounds he is making would be pathetic if it were anyone else but this is Genichiro, and this is Wolf, and Kenjiro understands.

There is milk trickling from the corner of Genichiro’s mouth when he finally pulls away, sinking down between Wolf’s thighs. He runs his fingers over Wolf’s slit, staring with something like reverence. 

Then he swears under his breath and latches onto Wolf’s cunt with a moan, arms curling around his thighs to hold him in place. All Kenjiro can see is Genichiro’s lidded eyes, drunk on the taste of Wolf’s slick. Kenjiro can spend hours there eating Wolf out, so he knows the lure is overwhelming, but now it is different.

Wolf is in heat, and he cannot endure Genichiro’s helpless need to feast on him. He tugs Genichiro’s face away, and Genichiro lets him, looking stricken. He thinks he has done something wrong.

Wolf shakes his head, running his thumb over Genichiro’s mouth.

“Later. Later, just… I need your knot, Genichiro. Please.”

Genichiro looks to Kenjiro, who smiles wide and nods.

“It is your turn to give Ashina an heir, don’t you think?”

The way Genichiro shakes is something Kenjiro feels all the way down in his bones.

He looks up at Wolf, mouth wet and pupils black. There is a storm above the castle, thunder rumbling and the skies stuttering with light.

“Tell me I can,” Genichiro says. 

“I want you,” Wolf replies, throwing his thighs even wider, arching in Kenjiro’s lap. “I need you.”

Genichiro pulls Wolf down onto the futon and brings their mouths together, pressing into his cunt with a broken sob. He rocks his hips forward; once, twice. He says he is sorry and trembles, knot swelling up to lock them together. A handful of seconds. Kenjiro cannot even find the words to tease.

Genichiro looks so fucking beautiful, brows furrowed and jaw wide as ecstasy racks him from head to toe. Even with such brevity, Wolf’s ache has fallen away. There is a knot in him. Genichiro’s seed is pulsing deep into his belly.

It is all he needs for now. Genichiro is more than enough.

Kenjiro gives them a few moments to catch their breath. It is no hardship to watch them lay there gasping, Genichiro kissing up Wolf’s jaw, Wolf’s fingers sifting through his hair. Still, Kenjiro has been away from his wife for too long and he is not patient enough to wait.

He presses in close, nuzzling against Wolf’s cheek as he slips his hand between them. Kenjiro runs his fingers over the place they’re locked together, tracing Wolf’s swollen cunt. Genichiro’s pulsing knot. There is come and slick dripping down Wolf’s thighs.

Kenjiro slides his hand lower, teasing between Wolf’s cheeks with wet fingers. It is something normally reserved for when Wolf is heaviest with child, but things are different now.

“I have missed you so much. I am happy to let Genichiro fill you up, but I ache, my love.”

Wolf rolls Genichiro over onto his back effortlessly.

Genichiro will go anywhere Wolf puts him. Will do anything Wolf asks. He looks up at Wolf with furrowed brows, arms possessively around his waist like he is afraid Wolf will go somewhere even with his knot between them. 

Wolf spreads his thighs and arches his hips as best he can.

He has missed Kenjiro, too.

Genichiro goes wide eyed as Kenjiro drags his fingers through the mess between Wolf’s thighs, then works them into Wolf. Kenjiro can feel Genichiro’s knot from inside Wolf, swelling against his touch. It has been a long time, but Wolf’s body remembers Kenjiro.

It is not long before he is pressing into him from behind, listening to both Wolf and Genichiro whine at the sensation. Wolf is shaking like Kenjiro has never seen. He has never been this full. Never been this  _ owned,  _ pinned between two alphas who smell like mate and family and need. No one in all of Ashina has ever been so safe, so cherished, so adored. Genichiro and Kenjiro would die for him.

Rise, and die again. There is nothing that can tear them apart now.

Kenjiro reaches down to bury his fingers in Genichiro’s hair, turning his face until their eyes meet. He grinds forward into Wolf, who is clutching blindly at Genichiro and making choked noises.

“I have ached for you too,” Kenjiro says, and Genichiro lets out a ragged breath.

“Yes,” he replies. It is not an answer.

It is answer enough. Kenjiro leans down and kisses Genichiro, both of them buried in Wolf, his scent so thick between them they cannot help their crooning. 

It is like coming home. Something Kenjiro thought he’d left behind. Somewhere he’d never be again. 

Something Genichiro had burned to ash, except here they are, tongues spilling together and Genichiro’s shaking fingers cupping his face.

“Do not push me away again,” Kenjiro says. It does not sound as rough as he intends. “I cannot breathe without you, Genichiro.”

Genichiro shakes his head and kisses Kenjiro again. Wolf watches, and quakes, and comes.

Kenjiro is whole.

-

  
  


Genichiro spends all of Wolf’s heat knotted snug in his cunt— kissing Wolf until his lips are swollen, sucking bruises into his throat. Kenjiro will not risk there being any question as to whose child Wolf has in his belly. He takes Wolf from behind, or fucks in between his thighs.

They are home now. He will have plenty of time to enjoy his wife again.

With Genichiro, now. He gives Wolf careful sips of water, always asking if he’s comfortable, if he’s thirsty,  _ are you alright, am I hurting you? _

Genichiro is gentle in ways it took Kenjiro years to learn. He watches them with his heart in his throat and cannot bear to look away.

There is no time to get lost in one another, not when Wolf is in such need, but Genichiro and Kenjiro cannot stop kissing. Cannot stop touching each other. Cannot stop nosing into one another’s throat when Wolf is sleeping,  _ gods I missed you brother, don’t leave me again. _

_ I won’t, I’m sorry. _

_ I love you. _

Moth is still nursing in the night, so they clean up from time to time when Wolf’s chest begins aching. Genichiro steps into the hallways leading to the childrens’ and servants’ quarters to take her from Asa and comes back talking to her in a soft voice.  _ It’s fine darling, your mother is here. _

_ Shh, sweetness, I have you. _

She is his child as much as the one Kenjiro is certain is already growing in Wolf’s belly. She has always been. 

All of them are Genichiro’s, too.

Genichiro and Kenjiro watch Moth eat her fill, falling asleep at Wolf’s chest. Then they pass her back to Asa and tangle themselves up in bed again. Over, and over, and over.

Kenjiro has never been this happy.

-

Kenjiro wakes the morning after Wolf’s heat finally passes to find Genichiro nuzzled into Wolf’s belly, arms around his waist, snoring softly. Wolf is awake, running his fingers through Genichiro’s hair. He smiles at Kenjiro when he notices him watching, one corner of his mouth quirked up.

“I see the battlefield treated you both well,” Wolf says, and Kenjiro grins.

“Well enough,” he says, brushing Wolf’s hair back from his face. “Being away from you and the children was miserable, but the Ministry is defeated now, and Genichiro is here with us. I will take it.”

Wolf runs his fingers over the bites he left in Genichiro’s throat. Lays a hand over his belly and smiles more softly.

“I will take it, too.”

-

In an amusing turn of events, it is Kenjiro who has to drag Genichiro away from Wolf later that day to meet with the generals. They need to be briefed on everything that happened while they were away, as well as go over what happened on the battlefield with those retainers who stayed behind, but it is difficult to make Genichiro cooperate. He’s wrapped around Wolf, nosing into his throat and crooning. It sounds more like a purr than anything else.

Wolf isn’t helping matters, petting through his hair and running his fingers over Genichiro’s face; the scent of bliss pouring off him is like a drug. Kenjiro can’t fault Genichiro for wanting to keep breathing it.

He finally manages to convince Genichiro that Wolf will still be there when they are done, and he can feed him by hand and scent mark him all he likes. Genichiro kisses Wolf one last time and they both head down to the baths to wash quickly before heading into the war room. It is not only the generals who are present.

The elders have gathered too, some of them with somber expressions, as though they are the bearers of bad news.

Genichiro sits down at the head of the table, Kenjiro on his right. He has never been overly involved in the day to day politics of Ashina; he goes where Genichiro tells him. Points his spear where Genichiro commands. It is not his place to speak before Genichiro. 

It is no one’s place, and so everything is silent.

“Out with it,” Genichiro says, brows furrowed. “I’ve things to which I must attend.”

Kenjiro cannot stop the smirk that spreads over his face.

There is only one thing that needs tending, and that is Genichiro’s mate.

“Lord Genichiro,” one of the elders begins, head bowed respectfully. “Some of us would like to speak to you about your… dalliance with Lord Wolf.”

It is Masahisa. Isshin was not fond of him and neither is Genichiro, but he always has good instincts regarding their allies and it is enough for the twins to keep him close at hand. Kenjiro cocks his head, one eyebrow raised at his words.

Genichiro narrows his gaze, mouth twisting into an expression of distaste.

“My  _ dalliance?”  _ Genichiro says, and Masahisa raises his head.

“We understand you have been in the field a long time. The instincts and needs of an alpha are something that cannot always be denied, but the castle was in quite an uproar when it became obvious you were staying in Lord Wolf’s chambers for the duration of his heat. It would be best to avoid such… liaisons, in the future. Lest the parentage of any heirs be called further into question. You must think of Ashina, first.”

Kenjiro feels the lightning in the air even before it erupts outside the castle. The windows fall into shadow as the skies overhead go black, thunder rumbling so deep it vibrates through Kenjiro’s chest. He felt fury at first, mouth full of a hundred vicious things he was ready to unleash on the elders, but he quickly realizes he does not need to speak.

Genichiro stands, head raised high and eyes on fire. He is terrifying.

He is beautiful.

“Let me say this plainly so you might understand, and we can lay to rest any questions about the  _ parentage  _ of the heirs of Ashina. Tomoe is Kenjiro’s, and Wolf’s, and  _ mine.  _ Takeru is Kenjiro’s, and Wolf’s, and  _ mine.  _ Ayame and Sparrow and Moth are Kenjiro’s, and Wolf’s, and  _ mine.  _ Any other children Wolf bears going forward are Kenjiro’s, and Wolf’s, and  _ mine.  _ Wolf is my mate, and as soon as he is able, he will be my  _ wife.”  _

The smile on Kenjiro’s face now is almost obscene. The wind outside is just as furious as Genichiro, howling as it shakes apart the trees.

“If anyone has any objections to this I suggest you bear them in silence, or you will bear my ire alongside them. I have thought of nothing but Ashina. I have  _ died  _ for Ashina, and come back again and again to keep her safe. Now I will claim what is mine. Anyone who stands against me in this, stands against  _ Ashina.”  _ Genichiro sneers, lip curled back from his teeth. “I suggest you tread carefully before telling me what you think is  _ best.” _

Genichiro storms from the room. Kenjiro doesn’t need to ask where he is going. Everyone looks to him, and he stands up as well.

“Lord Gyobu, if you’d brief everyone on the details of the campaign. Genichiro and I will reconvene with you tomorrow to discuss the attacks on Ashina in our absence.”

He winks at Masahisa and follows his brother upstairs.

Kenjiro finds Genichiro with his mouth buried between Wolf’s thighs, eyes closed and scent rapturous. Wolf is writhing under his attention, so oversensitive that any contact is enough to make him shake. Right after a heat Wolf will usually push Kenjiro away when he tries to eat his cunt, but it seems he doesn’t have the heart to refuse Genichiro.

Kenjiro closes the door and settles down to watch.

-

They make it to the baths eventually and wash the worst of Wolf’s heat off themselves, even if Genichiro and Wolf get distracted halfway through. Genichiro ends up with his fingers in Wolf, working his sore cunt until he shakes through an orgasm. It takes a while, but they get cleaned up and head out to the gardens to find the children as the servants do their best to air out Wolf’s rooms.

Wolf takes Moth from Furi’s arms, running his fingers through Ayame’s hair as she clings to his leg. Tomoe wraps her arms around Wolf and presses her face into his side. Sparrow has most of his fist in his mouth, raising his free hand towards Kenjiro to indicate he wants to be held. Kenjiro picks him up and kisses his cheek. Genichiro is further behind them, lingering in the castle doorway and speaking quietly with one of their retainers. 

Kenjiro crouches down to get Tomoe and Takeru’s attention, touching Ayame’s face so she looks at him, too.

“Things are different now between your mama and your uncle Genichiro. Me and your mama are mates, yes?” Tomoe nods seriously, eyes intense. Takeru and Ayame nod as well, less solemn but no less attentive, even if Ayame is gnawing on her dirty fingers. “Uncle Genichiro and your mama are mates now, too. He is your daddy just like I am, okay?”

Genichiro has been so much to Kenjiro’s children already. It is only right to give him this, too.

Everyone glances over at Genichiro in unison, who is looking at them suspiciously, clearly trying to extricate himself from the noble in the doorway. Ayame was barely stringing words together when they left to fight the Ministry; it will be an easy thing for her to pick up. Tomoe is used to calling Genichiro uncle, but she loves him viciously. Her eyes light up and she nods fast, one of those smiles on her faces that is barely a smile. For Tomoe, it is near euphoria.

She looks so much like Wolf.

She is so pleased to call Genichiro her father. Kenjiro traces one of the scars on her cheek and pretends it doesn’t hurt.

He looks to Takeru, who seems puzzled by the whole ordeal.

“You’re my daddy,” he says, and Kenjiro nods.

“I am.”

“Uncle Genichiro is my daddy now too?”

Kenjiro smiles and cocks his head.

“He has always been. Hasn’t he always treated you just the same as I do? He takes care of you and reads you stories and teaches you things. He loves you just like I love you.”

Takeru frowns.

“He doesn’t sleep in mama’s bed.”

Kenjiro pets through Takeru’s hair.

“He does now. He will, now.”

Takeru nods as though this is the only thing that was bothering him and walks off like the matter is settled. When Kenjiro stands up and looks at Wolf again he is grinning.

“Are you trying to break him?” Wolf asks, watching Genichiro as he finally breaks away from the noble and heads over towards them. 

Kenjiro huffs a laugh and tugs Wolf down onto a nearby bench. He should be resting so soon after his heat, and Kenjiro will carry him back to bed soon, but some fresh air with the children will do everyone some good.

“Genichiro is their father as much as I am.”

They watch Tomoe run up to Genichiro and jump up into his arms, burying her face in his throat.

“I missed you, daddy,” she finishes, with only the barest hint of hesitation. It is quiet enough that Kenjiro barely hears. 

Genichiro flounders, hugging her tightly with his brows drawn together.

“I- I’m-” Genichiro looks over to find Kenjiro smiling, and his cheeks flush bright and hot as he pulls Tomoe impossibly closer. “I missed you too, darling.”

His voice is ragged. His eyes look wet. 

Kenjiro buries his face in Sparrow’s hair and looks away.

-

That night Genichiro comes to Wolf’s quarters and crawls into bed beside him. Kenjiro is on the other side, Moth nestled in between them. She has missed Kenjiro fiercely, and now that Wolf’s heat has passed, she will throw a fit if someone tries to take her from him. They pile in together, the fire burning gently in the irori, the room bathed in soft light.

Wolf’s head is pillowed on Kenjiro’s arm. Genichiro is curled up next to Wolf, nuzzling into his throat and clinging. After a while his breathing goes ragged; he lets out hitching little sobs. Reaches over to touch Kenjiro, his hand shaking.

They hold him close and stay quiet. There is nothing to say.

Genichiro is home, now.

-

He never spends another night in his old quarters. The servants move most of his sparse possessions into Wolf’s rooms without prompting. No one dares speak a word about it, except for Gyobu and some of their closest generals, who congratulate Genichiro on his new mate.

Kenjiro is glad the Ministry has been handled, at least for the moment; it gives Genichiro time to revel in Wolf. He brings Wolf all his favorite foods and feeds them to him by hand. Kenjiro is long past needing to do such things to soothe the alpha in him, but he remembers what it felt like in the beginning to be providing for his omega. To sate his hunger, and his thirst. To carry Wolf to the baths and wash him. 

Genichiro brushes Wolf’s hair and works it into braids. He is practiced from Tomoe and Ayame, and better at it than Kenjiro. He chooses pins and combs carefully; only the most beautiful will do.

He wakes in the mornings with Wolf beside him. Sometimes Moth is nestled against Genichiro’s chest, and he covers his face in the weak dawn light as his shoulders shake. He kisses her forehead and doesn’t make a sound.

He spends hours every day learning Wolf’s body— every line of muscle. Every faded scar. Genichiro takes off Wolf’s prosthetic and presses his mouth to the gnarled flesh he left behind when he took Wolf’s arm. Says he is sorry, over and over. Wolf does not say it is okay, or that he forgives him, but he kisses him and that feels like enough.

Genichiro eats Wolf’s cunt with a hunger that puts Kenjiro to shame. He lays between his thighs and purrs and makes Wolf come so many times it must hurt, but he doesn’t tell him to stop, and he doesn’t push him away. He fucks Wolf slow and gentle, mouths pressed together until their lips are swollen. Knots him like he is trying to accomplish something he has already done. There are always bruises up and down Wolf’s throat.

There are matching ones up and down Genichiro’s. 

Genichiro is in awe as Wolf’s belly starts to swell. He cannot stop touching it, cannot stop staring. Cannot stop kissing it, and laying his face against it.

_ You can talk to them,  _ Wolf tells him, and Genichiro does. Quietly, gently. Kenjiro finds Genichiro’s head in Wolf’s lap more often than not, eyes still full of wonder. Sometimes he talks to Wolf’s belly in a voice Kenjiro has only heard in the dark.

Sometimes, he sings.

Sometimes his eyes are wet, and sometimes they are not. Kenjiro did not know this part of Genichiro existed anymore. He is so open, so vulnerable.

He is shameless, and breathtaking. It is a gift Kenjiro does not deserve to see him whispering against Wolf’s stomach, Wolf’s fingers tangled in his hair, lids heavy with contentment

Kenjiro doesn’t care about deserving the things that are his; he only cares about keeping them. The momentary peace in Ashina doesn’t only give Genichiro time to revel in Wolf.

It gives him time to revel in Kenjiro.

When they are in their rooms, there is nothing to hide. Kenjiro is always the one reaching at first— cupping Genichiro’s face and kissing him. Pushing him down into the futon and pressing between his thighs. Wolf watches with golden eyes and want in his scent as Kenjiro takes his brother, Wolf’s slick easing the way. It is easier than it has ever been for Genichiro to open for him with Wolf’s scent thick in the air.

Sometimes they fall asleep together, tangled up in one another as they used to be as children. As they were in Genichiro’s bed when they presented, two alphas learning one another in ways they should not. Tangled together as they surely were in the womb; Genichiro and Kenjiro were made to fit together.

Wolf was made to fit between them. 

-

Morihide comes in a storm as always. It is the worst one yet. Lightning rages wild outside the castle.

Genichiro will not leave Wolf’s side. Wolf has done this before, but it is different for Genichiro this time. The labor drags out longer than it ever has before, Genichiro white-knuckled and dark eyed as Wolf whines and shakes and screams. 

Emma hands him to Wolf first. He is bigger than Kenjiro expects, especially in Wolf’s arms. Wolf smiles down at him, letting out a laugh that is close to manic, rubbing his thumb over Morihide’s cheek.

Then he holds him up to Genichiro in offering, his smile gone fond and adoring. Genichiro takes him with unsteady hands, but the shaking stops as soon as his son is in his arms.

Genichiro’s son.

He lets out a shuddering exhale and buries his face in Morihide, curling around him like he needs to keep him safe. His breathing is ragged. Morihide is hidden in his hair, in his arms. He doesn’t make a sound but the scent of his emotions is overpowering.

There is joy and relief and awe. Possessiveness and pride and disbelief. There is guilt, buried underneath it all but refusing to vanish entirely.

There is so much love Kenjiro cannot stop himself from crossing the room, coaxing Genichiro’s face up, and kissing him.

“It is all right,” Kenjiro says, cupping his jaw in both hands. “He is here. He is fine, and Wolf is fine.” Kenjiro looks down and touches Morihide’s cheek with his fingertips. “You have a beautiful son, brother.”

Genichiro shoves his face into Kenjiro’s throat, reaching out blindly to take Wolf’s hand. The lightning outside has quieted but the rain is still pouring down.

_ Finally. _

It is not a thought as much as an emotion, and it pours over Kenjiro like the water of a stream on a hot day. 

Sleeping is easy. Wolf and Genichiro are close. Ashina is safe.

Kenjiro has everything he has ever wanted, and no one will take it from him.

He is a dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Kiri. Tell me nice things everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me nice things, here or on twitter @scifictioness


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